William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports was a consistent threat for the title during the NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, but had an unfortunate incident that ruined his chance to win it all. Byron started the race from the second position and, throughout most of the day, ran inside the top five. The No. 24 Chevrolet driver won the first stage and finished third at the end of the second stage, competing with fellow title contender Denny Hamlin for the lead through most of the race. Despite leading 52 laps, Byron was unable to catch Hamlin on speed and looked to finish as the runner-up until he ran into the wall with two laps to go with a flat right rear tire. The third appearance of Byron in the championship four ended with a 33rd-place run, and he finished fourth of the four title contenders, even though he was incident-free through most of the race.

Team Penske's Ryan Blaney was one of the top performers in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway. Blaney began the race from the fifth position, and although he had a slow start by dropping back a few positions early, his car had excellent speed on longer green flag runs. This showed in the first stage as he went from eighth to second by the end of the stage, running just behind William Byron for the stage win. Blaney continued to run inside the top five through most of the rest of the race, finishing second at the end of the second stage to Denny Hamlin. At times, he was the fastest driver on the track in the final stage and was the only one to keep up with Byron and Hamlin, the two most dominant drivers of the race. The No. 12 Ford driver was set to finish in third until Byron hit the wall with two laps to go with a flat tire. On the final pit stop of the race, Blaney took two tires and restarted in fourth. Then, on the final restart of the race, Blaney went on to fight for the win and took it away from Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson. This victory was Blaney's fourth of the season and first of his Cup career at Phoenix, but he did not win the title as he was not one of the four championship drivers. The Penske driver finished sixth in the final driver standings for the 2025 season.

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, kept himself in the title fight on Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway, but did not have the fastest car for most of the race. The No. 5 driver started the race from third and generally ran around the top five for most of the day, but typically behind his teammate, William Byron, and Denny Hamlin, who was the most dominant driver of the race. At the end of the first stage, Larson finished fifth, and at the end of the second stage, he placed fourth. In the middle of the final stage, Larson suffered a flat tire with under 100 laps to go, kept the car from crashing, and fell a lap down. He did get his lap back and worked his way back up into the top five before the end of the race, thanks to some pit strategy where he took two tires while other teams took four. The No. 5 team repeated the same strategy on the final caution of the race when Byron got a flat tire and slammed into the wall with two laps to go. Finally, Larson restarted ahead of Hamlin by a few positions, and through the final overtime restart, Larson stayed ahead of Hamlin to finish in third place. The result was enough for Larson to become the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion by finishing two positions ahead of Hamlin. This is Larson's second Cup Series title after winning his first in 2021, and he ended the season with three wins.

Brad Keselowski did not run very well in yesterday's season finale at Phoenix, but he sneaked into the lower reaches of the top ten on lap 258 before he and the No. 6 team stayed out of the pits to take the lead on the caution for William Byron's blown tire and crash with two laps remaining. While most of the leaders pitted, Keselowski stayed out in an attempt to end both his and RFK Racing's season-long goose egg. However, he ended up being passed by Ryan Blaney (who took two tires) in the last corner, which attracted little notice because the announcers entirely ignored the battle for the win to focus on the championship. Although Keselowski lost the race, his third second-plaCe finish of the season may give him some positive momentum going into 2026.