By David Morgan, Associate Editor
AVONDALE, Ariz. — 35 races down, one to go.
Sunday afternoon, the NASCAR Cup Series will hit the track at Phoenix Raceway for the 2025 season finale, bringing this season to a close and crowning a champion.
Heading into this year’s championship race, it will be a battle between Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing to see which organization brings home the Bill France Cup.
Representing Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet will be 2021 series champion Kyle Larson and regular season champion William Byron against the Joe Gibbs Racing/Toyota duo of Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.
By the Numbers
What: NASCAR Cup Series Championship, Race No. 36 of 36
Where: Phoenix Raceway – Avondale, Arizona (Opened: 1964, first NASCAR Cup event was 1988)
When: Sunday, November 2
TV/Radio: NBC, 3:00 pm ET / MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Channel 90
Track Size: 1.0-mile oval
Banking: Eight to nine degrees in Turns 1-2, 10 to 11 degrees in Turns 3-4 and frontstretch dogleg
Race Length: 312 laps, 312 miles (500 km)
Stage Lengths: Stage One – 75 laps each, Stage Two – 115 laps, Final stage – 122 laps
Pit Road Speed: 45 mph
Fuel Window: 85 to 90 laps
March 2025 Race Winner: Christopher Bell – No. 20 Toyota (Started 11th, 105 laps led)
November 2024 Race Winner: Joey Logano – No. 22 Ford (Started second, 107 laps led)
Tale of the Tape – How the Championship 4 Stack Up:
Kyle Larson – No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2025 Stats: Three wins (Homestead, Bristol, Kansas), 14 top-five finishes, 21 top-10 finishes, one pole, 1106 laps led, 13.5 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 22 starts, one win, 10 top-five finishes, 14 top-10 finishes, two poles, 395 laps led, 10.7 average finish
Practice Result: 11th
Starting Position: Third
How He Got Here: Larson earned his place in the Playoffs with a trio of wins in the regular season and built a healthy bank of Playoff points along the way, which aided him in his quest to get back to Phoenix and fight for a second Cup Series championship.
Despite a 26th place finish at Talladega, he bookended that with top-fives at Las Vegas and Martinsville to give himself plenty of breathing room to transfer into the championship finale.
As the only driver of the Championship 4 that has previously won a title, Larson comes into the weekend loose and ready for battle, knowing he’s got an ace in the hole on top of the pit box in crew chief Cliff Daniels, who helped steer Larson and the No. 5 team to the title in 2021.
What the Driver Says: “I think this year has been a lot of building for us. Our team looks completely different really than what it was to start the season. We have a 90% new pit crew, some different team members than what we had to start the year. Then we struggled throughout the summer. That made us build some mental toughness, I feel like, and work extra hard.
“This year has been really rewarding. Getting to the Final 4 is very rewarding. I would want nothing more than to cap off the hard work with a championship. I think everybody on our team, everybody’s team deserves it, but I really believe or team deserves to be a champion this year.”
Denny Hamlin – No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
2025 Stats: Six wins (Martinsville, Darlington, Michigan, Dover, Gateway, Las Vegas), 14 top-five finishes, 17 top-10 finishes, four poles, 816 laps led, 14.2 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 40 starts, two wins, 17 top-five finishes, 23 top-10 finishes, three poles, 939 laps led, 10.6 average finish
Practice Result: Fifth
Starting Position: First
How He Got Here: With a series-high six wins on the season, Hamlin is back in the Championship 4 for the first time since 2021 and hoping this time it’s his time to finally claim the championship trophy.
Hamlin’s 60 career wins put him in the upper echelon of the sport with one glaring omission from his resume – a Cup Series title, and having two extra weeks to gameplan for Phoenix after winning his way in at Las Vegas, Hamlin is a dangerous foe for his championship rivals.
After posting the best time of the four in practice and scoring the pole for Sunday’s race, Hamlin has the performance to back up the bravado. The only question remains is will he and the team complete the weekend to claim the championship or will fate intervene once more?
What the Driver Says: “I would say overall just a lot looser. Certainly just living this week to week,” Hamlin said of his mentality this time around versus past Championship 4 appearances.
“I’ve said it quite a bit, but just trying to count wins. If you try to start the year and say, We’re going to win the championship, you got to work this thing backwards. It’s very hard to work this sport backwards from the result to the execution of the result.
“I just have been very week to week on how do I win the weekend. Obviously winning the most races confirms that’s the right approach. It’s allowed me to be looser with it, not chase points as much or anything like that. Just capitalize on the week that we can win. Had some good results.
“I think kind of solidifying, too, the end of my career, when that will be. It allows me to kind of timeline this thing out. Just kind of puts me kind of at ease about when the end is, then how am I going to accomplish the goals I want to from now to that point.
“One big mark obviously was getting to win 60. I didn’t think I would get to it this year. Yeah, now you just got to move the bar to a little different spot, and feel like generally in a great headspace.”
Chase Briscoe – No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
2025 Stats: Three wins (Pocono, Darlington, Talladega), 15 top-five finishes, 19 top-10 finishes, seven poles, 881 laps led, 12.5 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: Nine starts, one win, two top-five finishes, four top-10 finishes, 114 laps led, 18.4 average finish
Practice Result: 16th
Starting Position: 12th
How He Got Here: In his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Briscoe started the season off slow, but found his footing by the start of the summer and came on strong, scoring his first win of the year at Pocono to punch his ticket to the Playoffs and kicked off the postseason with a win in the Southern 500 at Darlington to set the tone.
After making it to the Round of 8, Briscoe powered his way to the win at Talladega to earn his place in the Championship 4, as he looks to go out and win the title for the small town guys, with his hometown of Mitchell, Indiana pulling out all the stops in cheering for their guy in the big dance.
What the Driver Says: “It’s special just knowing we’re even up here. Those are guys that I definitely look up to. Not so much William, he’s younger than me. Sounds weird to say I look up to him.
“Denny, as a fan, I watched him race for championships. Larson, I’ve raced against Kyle since I was probably 15 or 16 years old. He was always like the guy to beat. Just to even be on the same level as them guys for one weekend is super special and humbling.
“Yeah, I would love to obviously beat those guys. If you can beat all three of these guys, then you’ve earned it. These are arguably three of the best guys week in, week out.”
William Byron – No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2025 Stats: Three wins (Daytona 500, Iowa, Martinsville), 11 top-five finishes, 16 top-10 finishes, three poles, 1278 laps led, 14.0 average finish
Phoenix Specific Stats: 15 starts, one win, three top-five finishes, nine top-10 finishes, two poles, 288 laps led, 10.8 average finish
Practice Result: Ninth
Starting Position: Second
How He Got Here: The regular season champion was on a solid trajectory to make it to the Championship 4 for the third year in a row until the wheels nearly came off in the Round of 8. After a crash with Ty Dillon at Las Vegas and a spin on the final lap at Talladega, Byron’s back was against the wall last weekend at Martinsville.
The math was simple: win or go home.
Byron would put in the performance of a lifetime, dethroning Ryan Blaney as the Martinsville master to punch his ticket to Phoenix and make a run at the Cup Series championship once again.
Momentum in the Cup Series can be a hell of an asset and Byron has that in spades as he looks to parlay his win from a week ago to capturing a Cup title in the famous No. 24 Chevrolet.
What the Driver Says: “I think we’re glad to be here. In some ways throughout the year we kind of expected to get to this point. I think that’s a dangerous feeling, right? You don’t want to expect anything because this sport is very unpredictable. There’s a lot that you have to work through.
“Yeah, I think we just wanted to be in this position. We wanted an opportunity. It’s cool to be here.”
