Kyle Larson is in a zone.
For the rest of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase field, you could call it a Danger Zone.
Larson delivered perhaps the most dominant performance of the 2026 season Sunday at Kansas Speedway, taking the lead on the opening lap, sweeping both stages and then doing the thing that championship contenders are supposed to do when the pressure is turned all the way up: find a way to win when somebody else finally managed to take the lead.
Larson led 235 of the 267 laps, setting a record for laps led in any NASCAR series race at Kansas. He also picked up maximum stage points and, most importantly, walked away with another victory and a 26-point advantage over Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings.
In other words, it all went rather well.
The race looked as though it might belong to Chase Briscoe late in the afternoon. After starting 23rd, Briscoe methodically worked his way forward, finishing fifth in Stage 2 and eventually getting close enough to Larson to start making the Hendrick Motorsports driver uncomfortable. By lap 211, Briscoe was hounding Larson for the lead, and after a round of green-flag pit stops, he finally moved to the front on lap 238.
For a few moments, it looked like Briscoe had found the answer.
Then Larson did what Larson does.
With six laps remaining, Larson went after the lead. The two made contact as Larson worked his way past, and the No. 5 Chevrolet powered back to the front. Briscoe tried to rally, but his day had already taken a beating from the high line. He hit the outside wall twice, the second contact coming with two laps remaining, and eventually had to settle for fourth.
Austin Cindric finished second, Denny Hamlin was third and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five.
“I don’t know,” Larson said when asked how he found the extra pace on the long run after Briscoe had taken the lead. “I really thought when Chase got by, he was just going to stretch out, but I got some lines going where I could settle in and try to take care of my tires.”
Then came the bit that might explain why Larson is suddenly looking rather comfortable in this championship fight.
“I think it’s just easier to be the hunter rather than the hunted.”
That may be the most important lesson from Kansas. Larson was almost untouchable when he was out front, but once Briscoe got around him, Larson could stop defending and start chasing. He could see what Briscoe was doing with the car, where it was getting loose and which lines were working.
“When he got in front of me, I could see he started getting really loose,” Larson said.
The difference was enormous.
Larson took the lead from polesitter Joey Logano on the opening lap and immediately began putting daylight between himself and the field. The only things slowing him during the opening stage were lapped traffic and the competition caution brought out on lap 37 after Saturday’s practice and qualifying sessions were washed out by rain.
At one point before the caution, Larson’s lead approached six seconds. Once he caught traffic, however, that advantage began to disappear, and after the restart his lead over Hamlin never grew beyond a second.
Austin Cindric was one of the day’s biggest movers, charging from 11th to second before the first caution. Blaney also made progress, starting 25th and finishing the opening stage 10th. Tyler Reddick, meanwhile, experienced the sort of opening stage that makes a driver wonder whether somebody has secretly swapped his race car with a lawn mower. Starting 15th, Reddick struggled badly and finished the stage 28th.
Larson was back at the front for Stage 2, with Cindric once again giving chase. By lap 113, Larson still had a substantial advantage when Noah Gragson’s Ford decided it had completed enough of its afternoon’s work and expired.
The restart that followed produced one of the race’s stranger moments. Larson led the field to the green on lap 121, but the pack never really got up to speed before Carson Hocevar, running just outside the top 10, was sent into the middle of traffic after a possible nudge from Brad Keselowsk. Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, Zane Smith and Josh Berry were swept into the resulting melee.
Whether it was retaliation for the dustup between Hocevar and Keselowski at Darlington was impossible to determine from the replay. Somebody on the Keselowski radio, however, apparently wasn’t troubled by the ambiguity, calling it the “move of the race” after the dust settled.
Larson didn’t seem particularly interested in any of it.
He simply went back to work.
He led Cindric by more than two seconds at the end of Stage 2 to complete the stage sweep and then started the final stage from the front on lap 171.
That was when Briscoe’s day suddenly became very interesting.
Briscoe came off pit road second behind Larson, while Reddick’s Toyota finally appeared to remember that it was supposed to be a race car. By lap 177, Reddick was fifth, and up front Briscoe was making Larson work. The once-comfortable advantage had disappeared, with Briscoe hovering within roughly half a second of the leader.
For several laps, it was genuinely compelling.
Briscoe kept cutting into the lead while Larson searched for the right line, and the two drivers began flirting with the outside wall. Reddick’s afternoon went from bad to good and then back to bad when he hit the wall on lap 207. Briscoe followed with his own encounters with the outside wall on laps 208 and 210.
That mattered.
Deep in the field, green-flag pit stops began on lap 212. Briscoe appeared to be heading toward pit road on lap 215, and Larson, seeing the move, reacted immediately. He dove onto pit road and managed to beat Briscoe into the pits.
That was the sort of small tactical decision that doesn’t necessarily make a highlight reel but can win a race.
It did.
Reddick had another problem during the same sequence when a left-front wheel nut came off during his pit stop. The delay turned his stop into an 18-second ordeal and cost him more ground.
Larson cycled back to the lead on lap 222 with Briscoe 1.1 seconds behind. Then, with traffic becoming a factor, Briscoe closed the gap and took advantage, grabbing the lead on lap 238 with 29 laps remaining.
And then Larson went hunting.
Six laps from the finish, Larson made his move. Contact followed, Larson powered past and the No. 5 was back where it had spent most of the afternoon: first.
The final margin was 0.565 seconds.
“Yeah, that was fun,” Larson said. “That was such a good day. Max points. I was going to be happy with second with how the race went, but get the lead, that’s a big deal for the points.”
It was a very big deal.
After a relatively quiet first portion of the 2026 season, Larson has now won two of the first four races in the Chase. Kansas produced maximum points and extended his advantage over Hamlin to 26 points.
And that is precisely why the rest of the field has a problem.
All of the top 10 finishers were Chase drivers, with Christopher Bell sixth, William Byron seventh, Chase Elliott eighth, and Bubba Wallace and Ryan Preece completing the top 10. Behind them, Reddick finished 11th, Daniel Suarez 14th, Ty Gibbs 17th, Logano 20th, Chris Buescher 23rd and Hocevar 33rd.
For Briscoe, fourth was particularly painful because he could see what a win would have done for his championship hopes.
“Yeah, just went really, really loose,” Briscoe said. “I kind of had that the run before when we did the green flag pit stop. I got it in the wall so many times that I had a little bit of a leak. Just went really, really free ultimately.”
Briscoe admitted that running behind Larson had actually helped him. Once he got the lead, the car became much more difficult to manage.
“It was better for me to be in second,” Briscoe said. “Just being behind him, especially with how much he aero blocking, it would tighten me up and allow me to actually be a little bit better. And then as soon as I would get the lead, I would just go really, really free again.”
That made the result even harder to swallow.
“Frustrating for sure,” Briscoe said. “I felt like I had a win there to stay in contention for a championship.”
Instead, he left Kansas 123 points behind Larson.
Briscoe knows the math isn’t particularly friendly. When asked how he avoids mentally defeating himself before even getting back into the race car, he didn’t exactly pretend the situation was rosy.
“I don’t know, it’s still possible, but you’re going to have to win five or so of the next six races,” Briscoe said. “Yeah, a little Tony Stewart 2011 run or something.”
That would certainly qualify as a comeback.
Hamlin, meanwhile, finished third and maintained second place in the Chase standings, but watched Larson stretch the gap. When asked what kept his day from being exceptional, Hamlin had a remarkably simple answer.
“Winning,” he said.
Hamlin explained that his Toyota was strong over the long run but didn’t have enough short-run speed to stay with Larson and Cindric.
“Overall just that’s kind of what we had. Third-place car, driver, and everything today,” Hamlin said.
And with Larson now 26 points ahead?
“I mean, there’s always been a threat,” Hamlin said. “I haven’t won it before, so I just feel like we’re still in it, still really close. You know, we just got to continue to put together days like this, and we also got to win. We got to win a few races between now and the end of the year.”
Cindric came away from Kansas with perhaps the biggest what-if of the day. He finished second, had speed throughout the race and was close enough to the Larson-Briscoe battle to see exactly what he was missing.
“Obviously it was a hell of a race for the win there,” Cindric said. “I thought our Discount Tire Ford was versatile than most, and I thought Brian and those guys did a great adjustment trying to get us good on the long run there.”
Cindric called it one of the best race cars he has driven.
“When you only lose by half a second, I wish I would have had at least a shot at it,” he said. “I felt like we could have at least joined the fun at least.”
That performance could prove significant as the Chase moves through the final six races. Kansas was the first of three 1.5-mile tracks remaining, with Las Vegas Motor Speedway next and Charlotte Motor Speedway still ahead.
Cindric knows the Penske team has to make Kansas more than a one-off.
“We have to be good on those racetracks, right?” Cindric said. “This is the bread and butter, so we got to be able to continue this performance for Vegas and for Charlotte and for Homestead.”
For Larson, Kansas was exactly what the championship doctor ordered.
His crew chief, Cliff Daniels, told him weeks ago that the championship could come down to Kansas, Las Vegas and Charlotte. After Sunday, Larson and the No. 5 team have checked the Kansas box with a giant, emphatic tick.
“Cliff Daniels told me a few weeks ago our championship, honestly, comes down to Kansas, Las Vegas, and Charlotte,” Larson said. “Kyle Larson and the 5 team delivered in front of the Kansas fans.”
They certainly did.
Now everyone else gets to deal with the consequences.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
- Chase Briscoe was six laps from becoming Kyle Larson’s worst nightmare - September 27, 2026
- Kyle Larson puts the Chase field in the danger zone st Kansas - September 27, 2026
- A week after the punches, Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar are practically BFFs - September 25, 2026