Didn’t have to go so hard during the regular season.
NASCAR wrapped up their 2026 season this past weekend, with Kyle Larson taking home his second Cup Series championship in a row and his third overall title.
This year’s season was also the first under the new Chase format, that was introduced for 2026 after several years of complaints about the previous playoff format and the emphasis it placed on winning.
The Chase was introduced (or re-introduced) this season to attempt to put more of an emphasis on consistency throughout the season. But at the end of the season, it turned out to be an incredible 10-race run to end the season from Larson that proved to be the difference.
At the beginning of the season, it looked like Tyler Reddick was going to be the one to beat after ripping off three straight wins to start the season and five victories in the first 10 events. But after a monster run over the summer from Denny Hamlin that included three straight wins in June, it was Hamlin who was leading the points at the end of the 26-race regular season.
But with the start of the Chase came a points reset, and Hamlin’s advantage quickly evaporated after Kyle Larson put together one of the best 10-race stretches of the season when it mattered most, winning three of the final 10 events and wrapping up the championship after the first stage of the final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Obviously it was a disappointment for Hamlin, who announced before this season that he would retire after the 2027 season and is still chasing his first championship. After such a dominant regular reason, the driver of the #11 car for Joe Gibbs Racing ultimately finished 2nd in the final points standings, 49 points behind Larson. And in reflecting back on the season, Hamlin admits that he might have gone too hard during the regular season.
Ahead of yesterday’s NASCAR champions banquet, Hamlin admitted that he was burned out by the time the Chase rolled around, and maybe shouldn’t have put as much effort into the regular season:
“I think it what this year taught me the most is that maybe I don’t have to grind so hard in the regular season. Like I really did, I worked so hard for 36 straight weeks. And it was like, did the really the first 26 really matter that much?
I don’t know if that’s what it was designed to do, but we grinded it out and I put a lot of effort in and it certainly tuckered me out towards the end of the year and I had some burnout.”
Hamlin says that the first year of the Chase has taught him some lessons for next season as he has one final opportunity to chase a Cup Series championship:
“Maybe I can relax a few weeks. And, you know, we finish fifth in points, but what’s the big deal? Because it’s just a couple stages worth of points, and that’s not very much over 26 races.”
The future Hall of Famer is quick to clarify, though, that he’s not arguing for changes to the championship format:
“I’m not advocating for more or less or anything like that. I thought that it was a a very fair system when we started the year.”
Of course it’s possible that NASCAR decides to make some tweaks to the points system over the offseason, given that they’ve now seen it in action for a year. There’s a chance that execs weren’t happy with the anticlimactic finish, given the lead Larson had built up heading into the season finale. But it’s still better than the entire season coming down to one race to decide a champion.
