The 36th and final NASCAR Cup race of 2026 is history, inspection is clear, and all results are final. Ryan Blaney got to celebrate a race win while Kyle Larson was officially crowned a three-time champion.
The season ended with an eight-lap shootout for the win, and Blaney took the lead from Tyler Reddick just before the white flag flew. However, the title battle was over by the end of Stage 1, with Larson clinching it mid-race. It was an unusual feeling after over a decade of the elimination format, but it certainly felt earned.
It was a rather calm finale in Homestead’s first year back as the title-decider since 2019, but just like any other week, there’s still plenty of winners and losers to choose from:
WINNER: Kyle Larson becomes a 3x champion
Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports
Photo by: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images
It felt inevitable ever since his incredible 11th-to-1st drive on the final lap at Talladega, but it’s now official. Larson clinched the 2026 title by the end of Stage 1, and beat Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin by 49 and 56 points, respectively. This team entered the Chase winless and as the No. 7 seed, only to dominate the final ten races of the year. It was a bit anticlimactic as Larson himself admitted, but they did a lot in the final ten races to get themselves to that point. The only blight on it all was the fact that Larson kept smacking the wall during the race, taking him out of contention for the win.
Crew chief Cliff Daniels deserves just as much credit as Larson for this title run, and the entire No. 5 team always made the most out of what they had during the Chase. After back-to-back titles, now we wonder if there’s anyone that can’t stop this combo in 2027, and just how far they can go.
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LOSER: Chase Briscoe’s early exit after starting from pole
Briscoe started the Homestead race from pole position, hoping to secure second in the championship standings. However, he never actually made it to the end of Stage 1 due to a catastrophic engine failure. He finished 39th as just one of just two drivers to record a DNF, falling down to sixth in the final standings. It was a great year that ended on an incredibly sour note for the No. 19 team.
WINNER: Ryan Blaney ends the year with another win
Watch: Blaney calls Homestead victory redemption after heartbreaking 2024 finish
Blaney has now won the season finale in back-to-back years, doing so at two different tracks. After falling back to around fifth on the final restart, he cut a path forward and snatched the lead from Tyler Reddick as they raced towards the white flag. It was an inverse of their 2024 Homestead battle, with Blaney getting a bit of redemption as he earned his fourth win of the season, jumping ahead of teammate Joey Logano in the final standings. He also had to battle back from mid-race pit stop woes, which was the story of his entire year.
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LOSER: Denny Hamlin after a winless Chase
Watch: Denny Hamlin proud of 2026 season despite falling short of Cup title
Hamlin went to Homestead knowing the championship battle was essentially over, but he still wanted to end the year with his 65th career win. Hamlin won three races in a row in June, but shockingly hasn’t gone back to Victory Lane since then. He entered the Chase as the title favorite and the No. 1 seed, but only managed two top fives in the final ten races. At Homestead, he had a real opportunity to win and even led the most laps (87), but that shot ended when he got up into the wall on the final restart, slipping back to sixth.
WINNER: 23XI with a double top five to end the year
Watch: Reddick on Blaney’s clutch pass: ‘He returned the favor’
Tyler Reddick lost the lead coming to the white flag, but he and 23XI still had plenty to smile about as they ended the year with such a strong run. Reddick’s second-place finish bumped him up to fifth in the final standings, and teammate Bubba Wallace scored a top five as well. That was the fourth double top five of the year for the organization. If only they hadn’t fallen off in the middle of the season before returning to form in recent weeks, maybe we’d be calling Reddick champion right now.
LOSER: All of the cars damaged in pit road stack-up
During a mid-race pit stop under caution, there was a major stack-up entering the pits as they drove into the setting sun. It didn’t look that bad, but in truth, several cars suffered race-altering nose and splitter damage. Zane Smith’s top ten run evaporated after the incident, Brad Keselowski got turned sideways, while drivers like Chase Elliott and Ryan Preece could barely keep up with the rest of the pack afterward — and they weren’t the only ones.
WINNER: Suarez and Gragson, despite late contact
This was a bit awkward. The only real incident of the race occurred in the final 15 laps when Noah Gragson pretty much ran over Daniel Suarez in the battle for 11th, spinning him out. However, it weirdly worked out for both drivers, as Suarez went on to finish eighth and end 2026 as the highest Spire driver in the standings, while Gragson matched his season-best finish of ninth. He did have to purge his system on pit road though, and the real loser in all this is the TV director who decided to show it.
LOSER: William Byron loses potential win due to late caution
William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Photo by: Malcolm Hope – Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Byron was cruising out in front of the field before the final caution of the race, and appeared to be in a perfect position to end the year with back-to-back wins for Hendrick Motorsports. Unfortunately for Byron, that caution was costly to him as he lost control of the race on the final restart, slipping back to third by the time the checkered flag flew.
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Watch: Race Rewind: Larson’s championship triumph, Blaney’s last-lap heroics
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