William Byron kept another driver (not named Denny Hamlin) from winning the title

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship race at Phoenix Raceway, for better or worse, had it all. Each of the Championship 4 drivers – Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Chase Briscoe – were competitive all day long, all four of them had tire issues at one point or another, and with under 30 laps to go, they were four-wide for the lead.

But it all came down to Byron being the last of the four drivers to blow a tire and bringing out a caution with under three laps to go. Larson, who didn't lead a lap all day, took two tires on the final pit stop, overtook Hamlin on pit exit, and became a two-time champion by finishing three spots ahead of him.

Motorsport has always been full of what-ifs, and this season, coupled with NASCAR's controversial playoff format, created a whole lot more. What if Byron never blew a tire with three laps to go, and Hamlin finally won his first championship? What if Hamlin's No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team elected to take two tires like Larson's No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team did?

Those are undoubtedly the biggest questions everyone is asking, even five days later.

However, there's a much bigger what-if that would have completely changed the championship picture.

Byron expressed major regret after bringing out that fateful final caution last Sunday, noting how that effectively cost Hamlin his long-awaited maiden championship.

He even apologized to Hamlin mid-answer as he walked into the press conference, telling him "you deserved it" and that "it just doesn't seem right" for his own misfortune to cost a fellow respected competitor his entire season, too.

While Byron's flat tire may have resulted in an eventual championship for Larson, NASCAR was not only one Byron caution away from a change in the championship order, but in an alternate universe, one Byron win away from the entire championship picture being changed.

Heading to Martinsville Speedway a week prior, Hamlin and Briscoe had already locked themselves into the Championship 4, while Larson and Christopher Bell brought heavy points cushions into the race. The second of them would only be eliminated if Byron, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, or Ryan Blaney won the race.

While Byron ended up winning, we weren't far away from seeing Blaney take the checkered flag and advance for the third year in a row. He was leading with 44 laps to go, before Byron made a daring divebomb move on the inside at turn one, made slight contact with Blaney's No. 12 Ford, and completed the winning pass.

Had Blaney won and advanced to the Championship 4, he would be a two-time champion, not Larson.

The main goal of every championship contender entering the round of 8 was to not only qualify for the Championship 4, but to keep the Team Penske drivers from making it there along with them.

That's because entering 2025, Team Penske had won two of the three season finales at Phoenix since the Next Gen era began in 2022, and between Logano and Blaney, the team had been undefeated in a championship sense, with Logano taking the title in 2022 and 2024 and Blaney taking it in 2023.

In 2025, Blaney was arguably the only driver capable of challenging Hamlin over the course of a full stint. Just like Larson, all he needed was a two-tire stop during the final caution, and a Brad Keselowski blunder in the final turn, to earn his fourth win of the year.

While nobody seemed to care about Blaney's win, and rightfully focused on Larson's elation and Hamlin's heartbreak, some pointed out that Blaney would have been crowned champion for the second time in three years, had he finished one spot better at Martinsville.

Despite being so close, yet so far, Blaney didn't appear too bothered.

"I wouldn't say it's bittersweet," Blaney said after the race. "I enjoy it just like any other win. I do find it ironic that my first win here is when I'm not in the championship. But, at the same, we're not beating ourselves up over what happened last week."

Of course, this is not to say Byron literally "cost" Hamlin or Blaney a championship. Hypothetical scenarios come out of every moment of every race, no matter how big or small something may seem at the time, and you know never know how things might have played out differently.

But it is crazy to think about what the narrative coming out of Phoenix this week would have been if things had just gone slightly differently a week prior.

For as much as everyone would still be going on about Hamlin's gutting defeat, there would also undoubtedly be a ton of discussion about what else it can possibly take to stop Team Penske's stranglehold on the season finale.