{"id":192959,"date":"2025-10-06T11:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192959\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:08:07","slug":"nascar-has-a-new-points-leader-after-charlotte-and-its-not-kyle-larson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192959\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR has a new points leader after Charlotte, and it’s not Kyle Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though he didn’t win the round of 12 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway or Kansas Speedway, Kyle Larson’s seventh place finish and a sixth place finish, coupled with the 32 playoff points added to his tally to open up the round, were enough to bump the Hendrick Motorsports driver up to the points lead<\/a> heading into the round of 12 finale at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.<\/p>\n

Larson, who is still seeking his first win since May, kept his momentum going with a runner-up finish at the Roval<\/a>, and in doing so, he scored the most points among all remaining playoff drivers. He clinched a spot in the round of 8 before the race concluded, and he concluded the round of 12 with a 14-point lead over Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell in the standings.<\/p>\n

But following the standings reset ahead of the round of 8, Larson, who has yet to score a single playoff point through the first six races of the playoffs, is no longer the points leader.<\/p>\n

NASCAR has a new points leader, and it’s not Kyle Larson<\/p>\n

Larson and teammate William Byron led all drivers with 32 playoff points during the 26-race regular season, but neither one has scored any during the postseason. As a result, it’s Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin who now leads the point standings<\/a> ahead of the round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and it’s Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney who is second.<\/p>\n

Hamlin leads the way with 36 playoff points (4,036 points to start the round), followed by Blaney with 34. Larson and Byron are four points above the Championship 4 cut line, as Bell finds himself as the top driver below the cutoff with 28 playoff points.<\/p>\n

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott are tied with 18 playoff points each, followed by Team Penske’s Joey Logano with eight. They are 14 and 24 points below the cutoff, respectively.<\/p>\n

A win during the round of 8 for any of these eight drivers would secure them a spot in the Championship 4.<\/p>\n

This also means that there will be at least one Championship 4 spot decided by points, so each driver’s regular season success could still play a crucial role in determining who advances and who doesn’t.<\/p>\n

The South Point 400, which was won in 2024 by Logano, is scheduled to open up the round of 8 on Sunday, October. USA Network’s live coverage from Las Vegas Motor Speedway is set to begin at 5:00 p.m. ET. Begin a free trial of FuboTV<\/a> and catch all of the action!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though he didn’t win the round of 12 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway or Kansas Speedway, Kyle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-192959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}