Kyle Larson smiled at the question but quickly clarified that, just because he is the only driver in the Championship Four field to have won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship previously, he does not necessarily consider himself a ‘favorite” this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.

There is no edge with this group of competitors, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion contends.

“Sure, we could all probably think up a reason of why there could be an edge that I would have,” said Larson, who drives the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “We’re all just so good and the teams are so good, I just don’t buy into anything like that.

“But we’ll see. I think having won before, I am a champion, so if I win another one, great. if I don’t, I’m still on the list. There’s that. But I don’t think that gives you any sort of competitive advantage.”

The 33-year-old Californian has three victories and topped 1,000 laps led in a season for the fifth time in his career. His 21 top-10 finishes are most among the four title contenders, and only Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe (15) has more top fives than Larson (14).

Although he hasn’t won a race since May 11 at Kansas, Larson is confident his team is in good shape, perhaps even peaking at the right time. He’s got 14 top-10 finishes in 22 Phoenix starts—a win to land him the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship and top-five finishes in four of the last five races at the desert one-miler.

“Just really excited to get on track and see if it’s what I expect it to be. But all four of us are going to be really good,” Larson said.

“We all have experience winning here,” he said pausing and smiling, “But I’d really like to win this fall.”

Chase Briscoe eyes title in first year with Joe Gibbs Racing

Last year at Phoenix Raceway, Chase Briscoe was reluctant to leave the race track.

He had just run his last race with his No. 14 team at Stewart-Haas Racing, not as part of the Championship 4 but as a driver for a team that was shutting its doors at season’s end.

It was the end of a dream for Briscoe and the beginning of another fraught with uncertainty.

“It is crazy, what a difference a year can make,” Briscoe said on Thursday during Championship 4 Media Day at the Phoenix one-mile track. “You go from being sad and down in the dumps… I don’t know, it’s just weird.

“We were the last people to leave last year, because we didn’t want it to end. We knew when we walked out of the tunnel that that group would never be together again. They literally kicked us out. They forced us to leave. We were here longer than the champions.

“But hopefully this year, I’m the one that’s here the longest again.”

In 2024, Briscoe won the Southern 500, the regular-season cutoff race. That earned him an unexpected berth in the Playoffs, but he was out in the Round of 12.

After moving to Joe Gibbs Racing this year, Briscoe has three victories, the most recent of which, at Talladega, propelled him into the Championship Race.

Briscoe’s Stewart-Haas group, however, hasn’t abandoned him.

“This week, all the 14 guys—we still have a group chat—they all were sending me motivational videos and trying to pump me up. (Former crew chief Richard) Boswell sent me a text this morning and sent me a video of all his kids wishing me good luck.”

Briscoe is the only one of the Championship 4 drivers who hasn’t raced for a NASCAR Cup title in the season finale. Even before he drove a JGR car for the first time, Briscoe knew expectations were high.

“I’ve raced against Joe Gibbs Racing, so I knew that, if everything went well, there was a very good likelihood that you’d be racing for a championship,” he said. “Year one—I’m not going to say it’s surprising, but it also I would say exceeded expectations for year one, for sure.

“It would mean a lot to do it in year one, just with everything, with Coach (Joe Gibbs) obviously taking a chance on me. Just to start our tenure off together winning a championship would be pretty cool, but it would certainly make the expectations going forward way harder.”