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TALLADEGA, ALABAMA – OCTOBER 25: Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, speaks to the media after winning the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 25, 2026 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Scott Taetsch\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship won\u2019t officially be decided until Nov. 8 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But if NASCAR\u2019s latest projections are any indication, Kyle Larson has already put himself in an almost unbeatable position.<\/p>\n With two races remaining in the 2026 season, NASCAR has given the Hendrick Motorsports driver a staggering 92.3% chance of winning the championship<\/a>. Even more remarkable, Larson could potentially secure the title this Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, eliminating the need for a championship showdown at Homestead altogether.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a remarkable turnaround from where the championship battle stood just days ago.<\/p>\n Larson entered Talladega Superspeedway with a five-point advantage over the field. He left with a victory, a 73-point lead<\/a> and a statistical outlook that makes everyone else a considerable underdog.<\/p>\n I think NASCAR is trying to tell us the math is mathing for the Hendrick 5 <\/p>\n NASCAR\u2019s Championship Projection Heavily Favors Kyle Larson<\/p>\n According to NASCAR\u2019s championship statistics released ahead of Martinsville, Larson has a 92.3% chance of winning his second Cup Series title.<\/p>\n The projection reflects just how dramatically Sunday\u2019s YellaWood 500<\/a> changed the championship picture.<\/p>\n Larson entered the final lap at Talladega running 11th before charging through the field to steal the victory in a finish decided by just 0.041 seconds over Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron.<\/p>\n The win was worth far more than another trophy.<\/p>\n Larson collected 68 points at Talladega, expanding his championship advantage by 68 points in a single afternoon. NASCAR noted that it was the largest points gain toward the lead by any driver in one race this season.<\/p>\n All 14 of the other Chase drivers lost ground to Larson at Talladega, an especially costly development with so little time remaining to recover.<\/p>\n The numbers also illustrate how difficult the situation has become for the drivers chasing him.<\/p>\n Among the seven remaining championship-eligible drivers, four are already more than an entire race\u2019s worth of points behind Larson.<\/p>\n And while NASCAR\u2019s projections overwhelmingly favor the No. 5 team, they don\u2019t guarantee anything. Martinsville and Homestead still offer opportunities for the standings to change.<\/p>\n Kyle Larson Could Clinch NASCAR Championship at Martinsville<\/p>\n The most significant development might be that Larson doesn\u2019t necessarily have to wait until the season finale to celebrate.<\/p>\n NASCAR\u2019s calculations show that Larson can clinch the 2026 Cup Series championship by earning 59 points at Martinsville, regardless of how anyone else performs.<\/p>\n That would make the Nov. 1 race the championship decider, a full week ahead of the scheduled finale.<\/p>\n NASCAR currently gives Larson a 36.8% chance of securing the title at Martinsville alone.<\/p>\n The 59-point threshold is demanding, but it\u2019s achievable with a combination of stage points and a strong finishing result. Larson could also clinch with fewer points if his closest competitors fail to keep pace.<\/p>\n Denny Hamlin remains the driver with the clearest opportunity to challenge Larson.<\/p>\n Hamlin moved into second place in the standings following Talladega, but NASCAR\u2019s projections indicate that he needs to leave Martinsville within 22 points of the lead to control his own championship destiny entering Homestead.<\/p>\n NASCAR also estimates that Hamlin would have a 60% chance of winning the championship if he manages to win both remaining races.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another interesting wrinkle: Larson has finished inside the top 10 in eight consecutive Martinsville races, the longest such streak at any track in his Cup Series career.<\/p>\n That consistency could prove particularly valuable Sunday, when simply avoiding a disastrous result would go a long way toward protecting his advantage.<\/p>\n Two races remain. The championship hasn\u2019t been awarded.<\/p>\n But after Talladega, NASCAR\u2019s<\/a> own numbers suggest Larson is no longer merely the favorite.<\/p>\n He\u2019s the driver everyone else needs something extraordinary to catch.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMaggie MacKenzie<\/a> Maggie MacKenzie covers NASCAR for Heavy.com. She previously worked for NASCAR.com, where she reported, wrote, and edited race-weekend coverage and traveled to key events throughout the season. She has more than ten years of experience in sports media and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. More about Maggie MacKenzie<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty TALLADEGA, ALABAMA – OCTOBER 25: Kyle Larson, driver of the #5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet, speaks to the media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-949777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949777","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=949777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}