Kyle Larson weathered the storm to claim 2025 NASCAR championship

Kyle Larson's second NASCAR Cup Series championship came in a much different fashion than his first. 

Larson's 2021 championship campaign was a year in which the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team decimated its competition. Their 2025 title run was one in which they had to fight and claw for everything they got. 

That included the championship itself, of course, which Larson earned after crew chief Cliff Daniels opted to take two tires on the final pit stop. Denny Hamlin took four, which gave Larson an advantage over Hamlin in NASCAR overtime that the latter did not relinquish. 

A third-place finish on a day where he led zero laps gave Larson his second championship. The Elk Grove, California, native is only the 18th driver in NASCAR history to win multiple Cup Series championships. 

Larson's 2025 season was quite the bumpy ride, at least, relative to the type of season he's used to having. Larson won only three races, with the latest victory coming at Kansas Speedway on May 11. He failed to finish inside the top 10 in the first round of the postseason, and a summer "slump" had some fans worried. 

Kyle Larson closed 2025 strong

But Larson finished seventh or better in six of the seven playoff races, and regardless of the controversial circumstances surrounding the playoff format, he'll forever be remembered as the 2025 champion. 

"This has been a very tough season for the 5 team on a lot of fronts," said Larson's crew chief, Cliff Daniels, in a post-race news conference. "We had some really strong wins early in the year, a lot of strength. The summer was tough. We were down and sideways. Never quite down and out." 

A flat tire early in Stage 3 of Sunday's season finale at Phoenix Raceway put Larson behind the eight-ball in the closing laps of the season. When the final caution came out, Larson was fourth, second of the championship contenders, but too far back to make any run at Hamlin for the race win and the championship. 

"I mean, did anybody in here think that we had a shot?," Larson said. "Like Cliff was saying, we weren’t dead but we were pretty close.

The final stage was not going as we needed it to. I didn’t feel great about my car, but I thought my team was doing a good job to keep me in striking distance if we had a caution, we could get a good pit stop and make it work, hopefully have a shot that way." 

Get a shot Larson did — and he took advantage of it, getting a good enough restart to put distance between himself and Hamlin.

"I got a better one and two than I expected<" Larson said. "For a bit I thought I was going to win. They were going kind of crazy on the radio, my spotter was, telling me that the 11 was kind of jammed up back there.

I was going to be committed to the outside lane. I felt like that was going to be my best opportunity to find clean air, maintain momentum. I still wanted to win really bad. It’s been a while. I was trying what I could to win the race. But yeah, we did what we had to do to win the championship. Just insane. Insane circumstances to get us to this point."

Those insane circumstances led to an afternoon Larson won't soon forget. 

Quotes provided by NASCAR Media.