Winner of the 2025 Miami Cup race, Kyle Larson is set to enter an elite club of drivers next weekend. Despite a poor showing at Martinsville, the two-time Cup champion will almost certainly clinch his third title next weekend, even if he scores just nine stage points, and The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi has no doubt about it.

Larson’s closest competitor, Christopher Bell, sits P2 in the standings with a 67-point deficit. Bell’s teammate Denny Hamlin has also had his hopes almost shatter, with a further three-point deficit behind the No. 20 driver, making their title dreams a distant dream, dependent on Larson’s collapse.

“This is Larson’s best track. He’s phenomenal there. You put him in a shopping cart, he is going to find a way to run in the top 10. He is so good here. He has led more laps than any other active driver by almost 200,” said Bianchi after last Sunday’s race on The Teardown podcast.

The 1.5-mile-long Homestead-Miami Speedway, which returns as the venue for the season finale after six long years when Phoenix Raceway upheld its duties, comes with impeccable Larson lore. In over 12 starts, the Hendrick Motorsports ace has six top-10 finishes here, including two wins, the latest of which came last season.

The No. 5 Chevrolet driver is seen as one of the few in the field comfortable ‘running the fence’ at Homestead, which is often touted as the fastest, but also the most difficult to execute ways to go about the facility. Mathematically, Larson only needs nine stage points to clinch the big trophy, no matter where his rivals finish. And remember, one stage point is awarded even if you start the race and finish last.

“At the end of stage one, if Larson is third or better, no matter what anybody else does, the championship is over. If he gets eight total stage points in either of the stages, so just a couple of okay-ish finishes in stages one and two, he’s got it. Or, let’s say he gets no stage points at all, but he still finishes 28th or better; he cannot be caught,” explained The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck on the same podcast episode.

Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, on the other hand, rely not only on Kyle Larson’s misfortune, but a standout performance of their own to make a case for themselves. Bell and Hamlin will have to win the race and score 14 and 17 stage points, respectively, to even out the points standings, assuming Larson falters.

Even then, the two-time champion would come out on top, as he has more wins than Bell throughout the 2026 season. Only Hamlin has four wins to Larson’s three, and that would matter only if the former can break even on points after the finale.

If numbers were an indicator, Bell could have a slight chance of doing the impossible come Sunday. Historically, in his six starts at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the JGR driver has finished inside the top 5 three times, one of them being a win in 2023.

Meanwhile, Hamlin has logged 21 starts at the facility with 12 top-10 finishes and three wins. However, all three of his victories came before the Next Gen era. Larson also has led the most laps of any current driver at Homestead (645), with Hamlin trailing in P2 (464).

External factors, such as a certain Tyler Reddick, who, akin to Kyle Larson, is known for his prowess around Miami, could also throw a wrench in the works for the title hopefuls from Joe Gibbs Racing. One way or the other, NASCAR’s return to ‘The Sunshine State’ for its season finale has blockbuster written all over it.