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3 Reasons Kyle Larson Is A Deserving Champ … And 1 Reason He’s Not

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
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Kyle Larson

When Kyle Larson captured the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series title in the recent season finale dominated by fellow Championship 4 driver Denny Hamlin, the outcome begged a certain question.

And a rather obvious one.

The question: Is Larson a deserving champ?

While the answer may be debated for decades to come, there are three compelling reasons why Larson totally deserves to be celebrating and savoring his second title in NASCAR’s premier series.

But there’s one reason — and it’s a big one — why the Hendrick Motorsports driver is undeserving of this distinction. Let’s get into it.

What Are The 3 Reasons Kyle Larson Is A Deserving NASCAR Cup Series Champion?

No one who looks back over the 2025 season can deny that Kyle Larson was one of the sport’s top performers.

For starters, he won three races. Of the remaining 35-plus drivers who compete each weekend, only four won more. And one of those — Shane van Gisbergen — sort of carried an unfair advantage at all the places he won, road courses.

So, if you exclude van Gisbergen, who’s logged far more laps on road courses than the vast majority of his competitors, only three drivers went to Victory Lane more often than Larson. They were Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney.

Winning more often than Larson doesn’t automatically make them more deserving champions, however. After all, few objected when Rusty Wallace triumphed 10 times in 1993 to Dale Earnhardt’s six wins but Earnhardt claimed the title.

Ditto for 1996 when 10-time winner Jeff Gordon lost the championship to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Terry Labonte, who sipped the winner’s champagne just twice.

Given all this, Larson pulling out three victories in 2025 actually bolsters his case for being a deserving champ, as opposed to hurting it.

The second reason Larson fully deserved to climb the sport’s highest mountain is the 1,106 laps he led in 2025. Only one other competitor — Larson’s fellow Championship 4 driver and Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron — spent more time out front.

Lastly, Larson’s consistency was befitting of a champion. His 22 top-10 finishes left him tied for the most in the Cup Series. And his 15 top-fives did the same.

What’s The Lone Reason Kyle Larson Doesn’t Deserve To Be 2025 Cup Series Champion?

To be the champion of virtually every other sport besides NASCAR, winning the last event of the season — or at least one of the last events — is required.

But NASCAR, of course, is different. Despite a points system that places a greater emphasis on winning than it once did, it still puts a premium on consistency.

And this, in a nutshell, was Kyle Larson’s saving grace in 2025. Oh sure, he notched three wins. But all three came in the first third of the 36-race season. In other words, Larson never hoisted a checkered flag over the season’s last 24 races. That also means he failed to take home a single trophy in the 10-race playoff, becoming the first champion to do so since the Cup Series adopted its current playoff format in 2014.

Is there any other sport out there that crowns a champ who goes winless in its version of the playoffs? The NFL doesn’t. MBL doesn’t. The NBA doesn’t. College basketball and college football certainly don’t.

NASCAR crowning a champion who doesn’t win the last race is one thing. But for the champ to be someone who never took the checkered flag P1 in 10 playoff races seems rather preposterous.

With all that said, Larson was plenty deserving of a title on multiple other fronts. So, you can decide for yourself if he met the criteria for being a champion at NASCAR’s highest level in 2025.

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.
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