November 3, 2025

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, kept himself in the title fight on Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway, but did not have the fastest car for most of the race. The No. 5 driver started the race from third and generally ran around the top five for most of the day, but typically behind his teammate, William Byron, and Denny Hamlin, who was the most dominant driver of the race. At the end of the first stage, Larson finished fifth, and at the end of the second stage, he placed fourth. In the middle of the final stage, Larson suffered a flat tire with under 100 laps to go, kept the car from crashing, and fell a lap down. He did get his lap back and worked his way back up into the top five before the end of the race, thanks to some pit strategy where he took two tires while other teams took four. The No. 5 team repeated the same strategy on the final caution of the race when Byron got a flat tire and slammed into the wall with two laps to go. Finally, Larson restarted ahead of Hamlin by a few positions, and through the final overtime restart, Larson stayed ahead of Hamlin to finish in third place. The result was enough for Larson to become the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion by finishing two positions ahead of Hamlin. This is Larson's second Cup Series title after winning his first in 2021, and he ended the season with three wins.--Sean Engel - RotoBaller
Source: NASCAR.com