Kyle Larson is a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. The Hendrick Motorsports driver clinched the 2026 title on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, wrapping up the championship early in the season finale after finishing fourth in Stage 1.

Larson entered the final race of the season with a comfortable cushion over his two rivals, Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin. He needed nine points to guarantee the title whatever happened behind him, and the seven stage points he collected in the opening segment were enough to put the crown beyond reach. NASCAR confirmed the maths to his crew chief, Cliff Daniels, over the radio.

"They've declared it," Daniels told his driver. "We got it." Larson's reply summed up the unusual way the title was decided: "It's done? ... Well that was anticlimactic."

A remarkable turnaround season

The championship completes a remarkable turnaround. Larson went the entire 26-race regular season without a victory, then found form when it mattered most in the revived Chase format, which returned in 2026 with a single points reset after the regular season and a 10-race run to the title without eliminations.

He ended a 51-race winless streak at Gateway, then won at Kansas and at Talladega, where he charged from 11th to first on the final lap in an overtime photo finish for his first superspeedway victory. He also finished second at Bristol and Las Vegas and sixth at Charlotte. His one bad day in the Chase came at Phoenix, where a blown tyre with 29 laps remaining sent him into the wall and ended his race, but he bounced back immediately and never gave up the points lead he had taken at Bristol.

"I really had no confidence, zero, before the Chase. Hope, but no confidence," Larson said. "I would really look at Darlington as that being the turning point of my confidence. I know we didn't win, but I feel like we executed a really good day."

Among the greats of the sport

The title is Larson's third in the Cup Series, after his first in 2021 and his second last season, and his second in a row. He is the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson, who won five titles in a row from 2006 to 2010, and only the 11th driver in the history of the sport to win at least three championships at the top level.

He now stands alongside names such as Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart and Joey Logano. Crew chief Cliff Daniels became only the second crew chief to win three Cup Series titles in his first seven seasons, after Ray Evernham did so with Gordon in the 1990s.

The championship is also Hendrick Motorsports' record 16th Cup Series title, more than any other team in the sport's history. Larson, 34, from Elk Grove, California, has now won 29 Cup Series races since the start of the 2020 season, more than any other driver in that period, including three of the sport's crown-jewel events: the 2021 Coca-Cola 600, the 2023 Southern 500 and the 2024 Brickyard 400.

"This one I'll remember forever because of just the season that it was and the struggle that it was, and then just building as a team to be ready for the Chase, and then to go execute like we have," Larson said. With his third title secured before his 35th birthday, and plenty of seasons ahead of him in the No. 5 Chevrolet, few would bet against him adding more.