For the quartet of drivers making up the Championship 4, Phoenix Raceway is a fitting venue to decide the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Larson and William Byron advanced to the Championship 4 and can win the title by finishing ahead of their three playoff competitors in Sunday’s Cup Series championship race at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The relatively flat, one-mile oval features a dogleg on the frontstretch and a wide, flat Turn 1 that should be the catalyst for five, six and potentially seven-wide racing on restarts. Phoenix is also a track that tends to lend itself to long green-flag runs — the 2024 finale had only four caution flags, two of which were for stage ends.
A Toyota driver (Christopher Bell) won the last time the Cup Series visited Phoenix in March, but all three manufacturers (Toyota, Chevy, Ford) have won at least one of the last five Phoenix races. Notably, this is the first time in the Next-Gen era that both Team Penske and Ford are absent from the Championship 4, and either a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota or a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will take home the 2025 title.
With the stage set for the season finale, here’s how the Championship 4 field stacks up at Phoenix, ranked by how well the track has treated them in the past.
1 Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing
Phoenix Stats: 40 starts, two wins, 17 top-fives, 23 top-10s, 939 laps led, 10.6 average finish
Hamlin certainly has the upper hand in regard to experience at Phoenix, though he hasn’t been as good at the one-mile track in the Next-Gen era. In seven Next-Gen races at Phoenix, his only top-five result was a runner-up finish in March. Hamlin did, however, reach the Championship 4 at Phoenix in 2020 and 2021, where he finished fourth and third in the championship race, respectively.
Hamlin hasn’t won at Phoenix since the 2019 Round of 8 cut-off race, but a similar must-win scenario faces him on Sunday. Another clutch win in the desert would finally deliver Hamlin a coveted first Cup Series championship.
2. Kyle Larson, No. 5 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports
Phoenix Stats: 22 starts, one win, 10 top-fives, 14 top-10s, 395 laps led, 10.7 average finish
Larson has been on a roll at Phoenix since winning the 2021 championship race. Aside from an engine failure in the spring of 2022, Larson has been lights-out at Phoenix in the Next-Gen era, finishing no worse than 14th in the last six Phoenix races. That includes the 2023 spring race, in which Larson won the pole, led 201 laps and finished fourth. In his 2023 Championship 4 appearance, Larson finished third, and he has four top-fives in the last five Phoenix races.
3. William Byron, No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports
Phoenix Stats: 15 starts, one win, three top-fives, nine top-10s, 288 laps led, 10.8 average finish
Byron has gotten used to being up front at Phoenix in the Next-Gen era, leading 273 laps in seven races and only being a true non-factor in the 2024 spring race. He certainly wouldn’t mind a repeat of the 2023 championship race, in which he started from the pole and led 95 laps before finishing fourth in his first Championship 4 appearance.
Byron also has the most momentum of any driver in the Championship 4 field after dominating the Oct. 26 race at Martinsville Speedway, and he’s hoping for a similarly dominant performance on Sunday.
4. Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing
Phoenix Stats: Nine starts, one win, two top-fives, four top-10s, 114 laps led, 18.4 average finish
Briscoe scored his first Cup Series win at Phoenix in the spring of 2022 and followed that up with a fourth-place finish in the 2022 finale. He finished 35th at Phoenix in March after a crash, but if he can replicate the speed he had with a floundering Stewart-Haas Racing, his JGR Toyota will be near the front.
Briscoe is at a disadvantage in regard to experience, but four of his five years in the Cup Series have come in the Next-Gen era. If there’s any driver in the field that is the most used to how NASCAR’s current car drives, especially at Phoenix, it’s Briscoe.
–Samuel Stubbs, Field Level Media
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