Four races are in the books in NASCAR’s postseason Chase. With six weekends remaining, the championship picture is becoming clearer.
By winning two of the first four races, and placing inside the top-five in the other two, reigning champion Kyle Larson has found his groove again and has vaulted to the top of the standings. The driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports is 26 points ahead of regular season champion Denny Hamlin heading into this weekend’s race at Las Vegas.
Larson, who won championships in 2021 and 2025, had an up-and-down start to the season with nine finishes of 30th or worse. Three of those were DNFs, and he was riding a 51-race winless streak until he took the checkered flag at Gateway on Sept. 13.
After winning
at Kansas last weekend, Larson is now the driver everyone else is chasing.
"I consider Kyle Larson one of the greatest race drivers I've ever seen perform anywhere in the world, but I didn't see this coming at all," Hall of Fame driver and USA Network analyst Dale Jarrett told USA TODAY Sports recently. "That’s a testament to Hendrick Motorsports, to Kyle Larson, to (crew chief) Cliff Daniels. It’s shocking, but I'm not surprised it's Kyle Larson that we're talking about that has made this great run because I think he's just so tremendously talented.
"He has set the standard now and he has applied a tremendous amount of pressure to the contenders that were ahead of him, but now looking up at him at the top of the board."
Hamlin, still searching for his first Cup Series championship at the age of 45, has held serve in the last three Chase races after a rough 18th place finish at Darlington. He placed inside the top 10 at Gateway and Bristol, then ran third this past weekend at Kansas. But to catch Larson, Hamlin is going to have to remain consistent, or hope Larson has a bad day. Winning a race for the first time since June 14 at Pocono would go a long way too.
Other drivers have faded back in the standings and simply have too much ground in front of them to make up. Others, like Team Penske drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, need to tread water through this stretch of the postseason until the Chase returns to tracks more favorable to their Fords.
And then there’s Tyler Reddick, once seen as the championship favorite who hasn’t been able to find consistency in the second half of the season.
"We got big problems," Reddick told reporters after an 11th place finish at Kansas. "We just got to figure out our own (expletive) right now. … Even if I had to imagine when our car was at its best (at Kansas) it still wasn’t great. We’re still off."
With six races remaining, USA TODAY Sports presents tier rankings for each of the 16 drivers’ chances to win the Chase:
It’s not happening for them this year
Daniel Suarez, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Chase Elliott, William Byron, Carson Hocevar
All of these drivers are at least 150 points behind the leader and haven’t shown the consistency this season that’s required to make up that much ground in just six races. Suarez, Preece, Elliott and Hocevar have all won races this season, but aside from Hocevar’s eventful night at Bristol, none of them have challenged for a win in the Chase yet – and Hocevar followed that up with a dreadful run at Kansas where he finished three laps down.
Long shots who need to start winning races now
Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, Chase Briscoe
Wallace was having a solid day at Kansas until he was collected in a multi-car wreck on a restart. Cindric and Briscoe both challenged Larson for the lead, but ultimately couldn’t pass him for the checkered flag. This trio of drivers have shown the ability to string together good races, but they need to start piling up points to have a chance of catching the contenders. If one of them has a bad run at Las Vegas, it’s curtains for their championship hopes.
Shown potential, but not consistency
Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick
Reddick won five of the first nine races of the season, but has since been plagued by pit road problems, issues under the hood or bad luck. He finished third at Darlington, but hasn’t cracked the top 10 since. Beginning with a DNF at Michigan in early June, Reddick just hasn’t been able to recreate the success he had early in the season.
Gibbs has won two races this season, at Bristol and Iowa, but hasn’t strung together back-to-back top-10 finishes since mid-July. An average finish of 13.8 over his last seven races isn’t going to cut it in the Chase.
Can’t count them out yet
Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano
The pair of Team Penske teammates need to have mistake-free races and solid finishes over the next two stops in the Chase, Las Vegas and Charlotte. While Penske wasn’t all that good on mile-and-a-half tracks early in the season, the team and Ford seemed to have figured something out as Blaney placed fifth at Kansas and teammate Austin Cindric ran second.
A win at either Las Vegas or Charlotte would be huge for the championship hopes of Blaney or Logano – and indeed, Blaney won at Charlotte in 2023 and Logano has four career victories at Las Vegas – but these two drivers mostly just need to stay within striking distance heading into the final four races: Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead.
Penske Fords have been strong at short tracks all year, evidenced by Blaney’s win at Phoenix in the spring and Logano’s run of wins at North Wilkesboro, Richmond and Bristol. Logano and Blaney also each have three wins apiece at Talladega, a superspeedway where anything can happen.
The contenders should be worried if either driver remains in the mix entering the final four races.
Real contenders
Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell
Larson has two wins in the Chase, Bell got a win at Darlington and has two other top-10 finishes, and Hamlin has been the most consistent driver this season with zero DNFs while also leading the field in top-10 finishes and top-five finishes.
Hamlin has won the last two races at Las Vegas, while Larson has three victories at the track in his career. Bell – who is 50 points behind Larson – has placed inside the top five at Las Vegas in five of his last seven races there.
This Sunday is shaping up to be a race where the contenders could be battling for what would be a crucial win.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Re-ranking NASCAR Chase drivers: Kyle Larson is the new favorite
