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Kyle Larson’s team told him he was a champion, but he didn’t believe it at first. The No. 5 team came on the radio at the end of Stage 1 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, Nov. 8, and told him the title was his.
“This one is much more rewarding,” Larson said on Monday, just shy of 24 hours after that radio call.
Larson won titles in 2021 and 2025 before this one. He called the third title more grounded than the first two, and more indisputable. There is no asterisk on this one. There is no adjoining argument that threatens to undermine it.
The Clinch He Did Not See Coming
Larson finished fourth in Stage 1, collecting seven stage points. That was enough to settle the championship with more than two-thirds of the 267-lap race still to run. He finished 12th in the race. Ryan Blaney won the finale. Larson thought he had to run third to get the points he needed. He was not expecting the news quite so early, but because of how Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin finished the stage, it was enough to clinch.
“I thought I had to run third to get the points I needed. I just wasn’t even thinking that I had clinched it at that point,” Larson said. “I knew the 11 was eliminated. I’m like, I just need one more point. All of a sudden they came on. I don’t know, I was just not expecting it.”
The radio exchange was understated. Crew chief Cliff Daniels said, “Uh, they’ve declared it. We got it.” Larson asked, “Like, it’s done?” Daniels answered, “It’s over.” Larson replied, “OK, that was a little anticlimactic, but that’s cool. Good job, guys.”
Team owner Rick Hendrick then came on the radio and told Larson he could attack the outside wall, a part of the track Larson has made his own. Larson did. At the start of Stage 3, he tapped the wall and brought out a caution.
“I got the word that we had clinched it, and I started driving like an idiot,” Larson said, laughing, on the NBC broadcast.
A Season That Turned Late
Larson went winless in the 26-race regular season. He entered the 10-race Chase as the seventh seed. Then he won at Gateway, Kansas and Talladega, and he took a commanding lead in the standings.
He finished the season with 2,501 points. Christopher Bell was second at 2,452, 49 points back. Denny Hamlin was third at 2,445, 56 points back.
“This was statistically probably one of our worst years and to still come away with a championship just shows how resilient everybody at the race shop is,” Larson said.
He credited the whole Hendrick operation, not just the No. 5 team. He named the No. 9, the No. 24 and the No. 48, and said the work across the shop is what made the Chase run possible.
“We absolutely could not have done what we did in the Chase without the teamwork that it took,” Larson said. “So that’s what this championship is, makes it so meaningful. It’s just the teamwork, which all of them took teamwork, but this one more than any of them.”
He also credited Daniels directly. “I truly believe if I wasn’t with Cliff Daniels, I wouldn’t have a single championship,” Larson said.
Why Kyle Larson’s Third Championship Lands Differently
Larson is now the 11th driver to win three or more Cup Series championships. He is 34 years old. He won back-to-back titles in 2025 and 2026, the first driver to defend a Cup title since Jimmie Johnson won five straight from 2006 to 2010.
The first two titles came with arguments attached. The 2021 title came in the first year of the Next Gen car, with Larson winning 10 races in a season that looked like a coronation. The 2025 title came in the final year of the old playoff format. This one came in the first year of the Chase, a 10-race playoff that demanded a result every week.
“Winning it back-to-back years with two different formats is rewarding,” Larson said.
He also said he never saw himself as a championship driver when he started. “I just never saw myself as, like, a championship type of driver,” Larson said. “To piece it together to win championships, I just never thought that was in my kind of capabilities.”
That is the change in this title. The first two proved he could win a championship. The third proved he could win one when the season gave him almost nothing to work with, and when the format gave him no room to hide.
The Last Word
Larson did not plan this championship. He did not dominate the regular season, he did not enter the Chase as the favorite, and he did not even know he had won it when he won it. That is exactly why it will age better than the first two.
The 2021 title was about talent. The 2025 title was about timing. The 2026 title was about a team that kept working through a winless summer, then executed for 10 straight weeks when the season was on the line. Larson said it himself. This one was about teamwork more than any of them.
At 34, with three titles and a back-to-back run in two different formats, Larson is no longer a driver who might join the greats. He is already on the list, and the list is getting shorter ahead of him.
