By Jerry Jordan, Editor
The NASCAR Cup Series Chase for the Championship is down to its final four races beginning Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, and the math in front of everyone chasing Kyle Larson is getting tight … or it would seem that way. Somehow, when you get to the Vegas odds, that all changes
Larson carries a 49-point lead over Denny Hamlin going into the Freeway Insurance 500, with Christopher Bell two points behind Hamlin in third – 51 points back. No eliminations. No rests. It’s all or nothing and at this point, the prognosticators are saying it’s Larson’s championship to lose.
Larson’s Chase Run Stands Alone
Larson has turned the Chase into a consistency clinic. Through six Chase races, his average finish is 2.83. I said earlier that he couldn’t keep maintaining that stat but he keeps proving me wrong. That’s coming from the same person who predicted Larson would win 10 races the season he won his first championship. He currently has a better record than any driver through the first six races of a postseason since the format was introduced in 2004.
Larson has finished in the top six in six straight races, and at Kansas last month he became the first driver this season to score the maximum 76 points in a single race.
The season line behind it reads two wins, 14 top-five finishes, 19 top-10s and a series-high 1,215 laps led. At Phoenix, Larson owns one win in 24 starts – the 2021 finale, where the victory clinched his first championship – along with 12 top-five finishes, 16 top-10s and the best average finish among active drivers at 10.0. He has finished third or fourth in six of his last seven races in the desert, including a third-place run this spring and a third-place finish last fall that delivered his second title.
The oddsmakers have noticed. Several sportsbooks list Larson at +550 to win the championship. That’s like 71 percent.
Hamlin Sees a Stacked Deck
Hamlin’s record this year may be better than Larson’s in the win category and overall stats but Larson pulled ahead when he needed and Hamlin stepped in it when he shouldn’t have. His four wins at Las Vegas, Nashville, Michigan and Pocono lead the head-to-head battle. His 16 top-five finishes are the most by any driver in a single season in the Next Gen era and he has finished every race this year.
Phoenix has been good to him but he hasn’t checked off a trip to victory lane since 2019. Last fall he won the pole and led 208 laps before getting shafted on a late caution that flipped the finish. Yeah, people could argue about taking four tires, etc. but the caution should not have been thrown in my opinion.
So far, Hamlin’s Chase performance in 2026 has been the bumpier ride. He averaged a 10.8 finish across the first five Chase races but almost had a disastrous finish in Vegas by his own doing. Considering everything that happened in that race, a 16th place finish was a gift. Then, he had to recover from a pit-road penalty to salvage fifth at Charlotte.
Hamlin has not won since Pocono in June and the deficit shows it. No driver in the modern points era has erased a gap this large with four races left, and Hamlin’s 49-point deficit is roughly 65 percent of the maximum 76 points available in one race.
Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast that Hendrick Motorsports can stack its best chassis and parts behind Larson, its one true title contender, while Joe Gibbs Racing has to divide its best equipment among three contenders in Hamlin, Bell and Chase Briscoe.
“100%. Absolutely,” he said, when asked whether that stacking amounts to a real advantage. “… all the parts and pieces and the chassis will be stacked to that one contender.”
What’s the takeaway – Denny Hamlin has to park his Toyota Camry in victory lane before the end of the season to have a shot at winning the title … and once may not be enough. It would help for Larson to have some bad luck over the next four races, too.
Bell Is Closer Than He Looks
Hamlin’s teammate, Christopher Bell, may hold the best single card left in the deck. Bell sits third with 2,316 points, 51 behind Larson and only two behind Hamlin. Now, he is heading to a track where he excels.
In 13 Phoenix starts, Bell has two wins, four top-five finishes, eight top-10s and 474 laps led. Both wins came in the spring races of 2024 and 2025 and the 2025 victory came by 0.049 seconds over Hamlin in the second-closest finish in track history. This spring he led a race-high 176 laps and finished second to Ryan Blaney. In the fall of 2024, he led a race-high 143 laps and finished fifth. Oddsmakers have made Bell the co-favorite to win on Sunday at +400, alongside Blaney, who has won the last two Phoenix races and goes for a third straight.
Remember that 71 percent chance to win the title by Larson. Well, comparatively Bell is also a 71 percent favorite. I can’t do the math to tell you how or why but essentially oddsmakers look at each driver independently.
So What Are The Odds
The championship math is weird – Vegas Insider has Bell and Larson tied at their chance to win the title at +550 with Hamlin at +750. That means Bell will have to leapfrog past Hamlin and Bell to win the title. What’s even worse is that William Byron sits at +600 odds and Ryan Blaney is at +650 odds to be the champion. It’s almost like the oddsmakers have given up hope of ever having Hamlin on top when the final checkered flag falls at Homestead.
Quick, let me get to the sportsbook. I haven’t lost faith in Hamlin and at those odds, this could be a lucrative play.