Only three races are remaining in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, and we already know who one of the four drivers fighting for the title at Phoenix Raceway will be.
Denny Hamlin passed Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe in the closing laps of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to earn his sixth win of 2025, punching his ticket to the Championship 4 for the first time since 2021.
Assuming neither Ryan Blaney nor Joey Logano make the cut, he'll be the odds-on favorite to finally win his first Cup Series championship. And the biggest reason why was determined on Sunday.
Race No. 33 has a strong history of translating to the Cup Series championship
Ever since NASCAR's current playoff format was introduced in 2014, one of the best ways to predict the champion has been based on who wins the first race of the round of 8.
In 10 out of 11 previous years, the only exception being Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s win at Martinsville Speedway in the 2014 season, the winner of the Cup Series' 33rd race has been a driver still alive in the postseason. Five of those 10 times, that driver has then won the ultimate prize three weeks later, including three times since 2022 alone.
So basically, Hamlin now has a 50/50 shot to win the championship based on historic precedent. It makes sense: the winner can spend the next two weeks taking it easy knowing he's locked in, while his team gets a head start on going above and beyond to prepare their setup for the big stage. It's almost like getting an extra bye week before the Super Bowl.
On three of the five occasions mentioned, the driver in question was Logano, who won at Martinsville in 2018 and Las Vegas in 2022 and 2024, three weeks prior to winning each of his titles. The other two instances were Jimmie Johnson in 2016 and Kyle Larson in 2021, and in each of those cases, late pit stops and restart chaos were largely responsible for their championship victories.
So is this more of a Logano "devil magic" trend than anything? A special asterisk can usually be placed next to his name when it comes to any sort of playoff-related strategy, given his team's massive leg up on the field in finding ways to game the system, but it's at least worth something. Perhaps all Hamlin needs to do to capture his elusive cup is to take a page out of his old rival's book.