Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson seized control of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship battle with a dominant performance in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, leading 235 of 267 laps and becoming the first driver of the year to score a perfect 76-point race (win, stages sweep, and fastest lap).
Six races remain on the playoff schedule, including three more on 1.5-mile ovals, with two set to take place over the next two weekends. What did we learn from Larson's Kansas domination?
Here are seven instant reactions from the weekend.
Kyle Larson is the favorite
This sort of goes without saying, and now he actually is officially the betting favorite to win the championship at DraftKings Sportsbook, after Denny Hamlin had initially retained that status even when Larson took the points lead one week prior. Larson had one top two finish during the regular season, and now he has three straight, including two wins.
He is reminding everybody what he is still capable of, and above all, he's reminding us all that even in the new postseason format, the regular season still only matters so much.
Toyota's advantage is gone
Both Chevrolet and Ford scored a better top finish than Toyota at Kansas, after one of the big storylines coming into the weekend was how Toyota, specifically Joe Gibbs Racing, would have a chance to right the ship during the stretch of three consecutive races on 1.5-mile ovals. Whatever advantage they had on such tracks in the regular season is gone.
It's happening again for Denny Hamlin
A 26-point deficit is not insurmountable over six races. But if Larson can keep doing what he's doing on intermediate tracks all of a sudden, the tracks where Denny Hamlin was expected to build up his advantage, it's hard to imagine him doing enough to win his first championship, even for as long as he had been the favorite this season.
He quietly hasn't won a race in more than three and a half months, and over the first 20 years of his career, he has found many different ways to lose championships. NASCAR's winningest non-champion of all-time might just have to try again in 2027.
Brad Keselowsksi still hasn't paid back Carson Hocevar
As much as some fans wanted the restart melee to be "revenge" from Brad Keselowski on Carson Hocevar, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't. Hocevar even admitted that it was probably his own fault for getting into Ty Gibbs, triggering the multi-car wreck. If, as Keselowski said after the Southern 500, Hocevar's day is indeed coming, it still is. Sunday wasn't it.
NASCAR needs to change the qualifying metric
Over the first four races of the playoffs, three qualifying sessions have been canceled. For reference, just four total sessions were canceled across the 2024 and 2025 seasons combined. But this has put the qualifying metric in the spotlight and highlighted the need for a change.
The most recent race should not be weighted at 70%, while the entire season is weighted only at 30%, when it comes time to determine a starting lineup, especially when there's absolutely no consideration given to who's a playoff driver and who isn't. I expect the metric to change in some way next year.
Team Penske's 1.5-mile struggles are overblown
The theme has been that 1.5-mile ovals are a weakness for Team Penske, and statistically, that would appear to be true. But Austin Cindric, widely (and justifiably) considered the team's weakest link, just ran second to Larson in one of the most dominant wins NASCAR has seen in recent memory. There's clearly some potential here, and it might not be too late, with three more races at 1.5-mile ovals left on the 2026 calendar.
16 playoff drivers is too many
We hated to state the obvious at the time, but there were always going to be issues with whatever new playoff format NASCAR introduced to replace "win and in", no matter how much fans claimed to absolutely love the switch back to the "Chase" format.
While we could spend all day debating whether the regular season should be weighted more (or less), what has become clear is 16 playoff drivers is too many. The bottom three drivers in the standings have finished no higher than 10th all postseason, and absolutely nobody truly believed any of them (Ryan Preece, Chris Buescher, Daniel Suarez) were true championship contenders.
There are simply not 16 championship-level drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, and including any more than 10 or 12 feels even funnier than the 8-9 Carolina Panthers and the 81-81 Houston Astros qualifying for their respective playoffs. We won't even talk about the NBA and its egregious 20-team post-regular season setup.
Next up: Las Vegas
Sunday's South Point 400 is set to be shown live on USA Network from Las Vegas Motor Speedway starting at 5:30 p.m. ET. Don't miss any of the action from the season's fifth playoff race!
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