After finishing a pedestrian seventh in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season point standings without a win, extending what became the longest win drought in Cup Series history for any reigning champion, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson picked the perfect time to go on a hot streak.
He finished 303 points behind regular season champion Denny Hamlin in the regular season standings. But thanks to his hot streak, coupled with the post-regular season points reset, it took Larson just three races in the postseason to take the points lead, and it's grown ever since.
Larson opened up the playoffs with a fifth place finish at Darlington Raceway, and he reeled off four consecutive top two finishes immediately afterward, including victories at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway and Kansas Speedway. During the entire 26-race regular season, he finished second just once.
Kyle Larson the clear favorite to win 2026 NASCAR Cup title
Even with a sixth place finish at Charlotte Motor Speedway this past weekend, his worst through the first six races of the playoffs, he extended his points lead to 49 over Hamlin, who has remained in second place ever since Larson took a one-point lead with his runner-up finish at Bristol Motor Speedway four races ago.
Larson became the championship favorite at Kansas the following weekend, when he turned a one-point lead into a 26-point lead with a perfect 76-point afternoon. Now at DraftKings Sportsbook, for the first time this year, he is listed with minus odds.
He is listed at -135 (bet $135 to win $100), with Hamlin still listed second at +220 (bet $100 to win $220). Behind them are Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, who sit third and fourth in the standings, respectively, and are listed at +550 and +900. Briscoe has won two races in a row at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte.
Full NASCAR Cup Series championship odds can be found at DraftKings Sportsbook and are always subject to change.
Given Larson's recent hot streak, it's surprising that it took this long for him to be listed as the clear-cut favorite, marking the first time in 2026 that a driver has been listed with minus odds. Even when Hamlin was the favorite throughout much of the regular season, he was always listed with plus odds.
Hamlin hasn't gained any ground, relative to the points lead, since mid-August, and Larson has outscored him in every single playoff race contested thus far. Even this past weekend, Larson outscored Hamlin, despite Hamlin finishing one position ahead.
He's clearly the guy to beat.
Yet even as Hamlin continues to drop further from the lead, nobody has managed to overtake him for second. Nobody else has done enough to truly consistently challenge Larson throughout the playoffs, which has made his path to the championship a lot clearer than it would otherwise be.
When Larson dominated at Kansas, it became relatively clear that he was "back" on the 1.5-mile ovals, tracks where he had been historically strong despite lacking the true top-tier speed needed to compete for wins throughout the regular season. He solidified that at Las Vegas when he rallied from a lap down to finish second.
Charlotte was far from a standout performance, but again, he still managed to gain crucial ground in the standings, even on a "mid" day. If ever there were a case of "good points day" actually being "good", this was it.
And with just four races remaining on the schedule, his odds show that the public is truly starting to believe that he could become the first back-to-back champion since Jimmie Johnson won five in a row from 2006 to 2010.
It's something that really started to become evident several weeks ago.
The seventh race on the 10-race 2026 NASCAR Cup Series postseason schedule is the Freeway Insurance 500, which is set to be shown live on USA Network from Phoenix Raceway starting at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, October 18.
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