Who Can Hang Loose at Homestead-Miami Speedway?

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NASCAR

Stratta’s Six: Who Can End the Season on Top at Homestead-Miami Speedway?

One race remains in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign from the beloved Homestead-Miami Speedway. While the championship battle may be all but secured, a very valuable win is still up for grabs on Sunday. The South Florida track is a favorite across the garage for its raciness and competitiveness from driver input. Here are a few drivers who hope to close 2026 with one more victory salute from the season finale.

Kyle Larson

On paper, Sunday is shaping up to be a coronation for Kyle Larson. The reigning champion, last South Beach winner, and current points leader heads into arguably his best track at Homestead in prime position to repeat. Larson only needs eight points total to clinch Cup title number three, putting him in very rare air among NASCAR legends. Larson and Homestead have been a great pairing together for over a decade. 2025 saw Chevrolet No. 5 take his second win here. Can the presumptive champion put up another banner day at one of his best tracks?

“I would feel a lot more confident if the gap were 77 points,” Larson said. “But now it’s down to single digits that we need to score. There’s definitely a sense of relief knowing we have a comfortable gap heading into Homestead, but nothing is locked up yet. Anything can happen, so I know I’ll feel some pressure this week. I’d love to get a couple of solid first stages under our belt and then go out and pound it in the final stage. We just need to approach the weekend like we have throughout The Chase: be prepared and ready to capitalize on every opportunity. Crazy things can happen, so we need to be ready for anything.”

“I haven’t been on track, so I think a good portion of it comes down to what your balance is, where you qualify, and then you kind of have sort of a plan for how you’re going to approach the race when you get there. But for me right now, I always — although it doesn’t look like it because I run so close to the wall, I’m always trying to get to the end of the race. That’s the main objective. So I would say there’s no difference in that for me. The most grip is against the wall, so usually where the most grip is is a little bit easier. For me, I don’t view Next Gen racing like running next to the wall is that risky. The cars are tougher than they used to be.”

“I think with the old previous car, yeah, most of the grip is still at the top, but there’s way more risk up there. Now there’s still risk, but a lot less. Yeah, I foresee my race looking like any other Homestead race for me. Try to get to the front and manage the race from there, and hopefully the first stage goes well and then you can really just race free after that. I still don’t think it’s going to change the approach of the race, but you can race with less worry at that point.”

“[Homestead] is a great track in an amazing part of the country. Yeah, the championship weekend was held here for so long. Even before I raced here, I always looked forward to championship weekend, in the years of like Kurt Busch, when he won, how crazy that was. And then when Carl and Tony came in here being tied maybe or something, that was awesome. Brad Keselowski drunk on ESPN, that was sick. There’s been a lot of cool moments from this place. Then getting to race here, this track is awesome too. Definitely was a different feel whenever it wasn’t championship weekend, so I’m glad it’s back and we can all have some fun.”

Calling this year’s Chase run otherworldly for Kyle Larson would be an understatement. Through nine weeks, the 5 team has three wins, a 6.2 average finish, and 424 points scored. Aside from an off day at Phoenix, Martinsville was their first Chase race finishing worse than sixth. Larson has seen the highs and lows of Homestead in recent memory, however. 2023’s race here infamously ended with him slamming the barrier at pit entry. This season, the 5 has one intermediate win and a 10th-place average finish. Larson does not need to be excellent to win this title, but he is still a rightful Homestead favorite. Should Larson take the checkers first, the three-time champion would also collect a third Homestead trophy in five years.

Denny Hamlin

One of Larson’s only title rivals is already a three-time Homestead winner–Denny Hamlin. The Joe Gibbs Racing veteran most recently won here in 2020, and has been top-five the last two years. 70 points down entering Sunday, Hamlin admitted his title aspirations are a long shot at best. Elusive championship aside, Hamlin is still one of the most deft drivers around Homestead. Toyota No. 11 has laps led in seven of the last eight years here, and looks to capture another checkered flag.

“I mean, I don’t have any optimism,” Hamlin said on his championship chances. “I don’t. I’m here to try to have fun and try to win the race if possible. But I don’t, yeah, no matter what. I mean, there’s obviously a chance you can win the lottery as well, but can you really count on that?”

“I think probably both just kind of, like really focus on trying to qualify as good as we can, race as good as we can and win the race. From my standpoint, I’m certainly not thinking about 2027 this weekend by any means.”

Hamlin has not been to victory lane anywhere since Pocono in June, now a 19-race winless streak. Homestead could be the perfect track for Hamlin to earn win five on the season. On other intermediates in 2026, Hamlin has two victories and eight top-fives in nine races. Averaging a fourth-place finish on 1.5-mile tracks, the 11 is an obvious Sunday threat. Hamlin may no longer control his championship destiny, but the 11 could easily end 2026 with one more trip to victory lane.

Ryan Blaney

If not for an engine failure last year, Ryan Blaney could have earned a first Homestead win. Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford led 124 laps in that race alone, only to finish 36th with mechanical woes. This breakout Homestead run for Blaney came on the heels of back-to-back runner-ups here the two years prior. In short, Blaney has come around to Homestead in recent years and should be strong again.

Blaney is one of only three drivers with an intermediate average finish better than 10th in 2026, highlighted by a recent top-five trio in The Chase. Also still looking for his first win this postseason, a Homestead triumph would ease team 12’s Chase heartbreak a little bit. Finishing worse than 35th in back-to-back weeks ended the 12’s title chances. Despite this, Blaney could still cross Homestead off his winless tracks list on Sunday.

Christopher Bell

No stranger to clutch wins at Homestead, Christopher Bell needs to repeat this to have any championship hope. Toyota No. 20 won here in 2023 to make the Championship 4, and now trails at second in points. Bell is in Larson’s rearview mirror by 67 points, and is eager to get back to one of his favorite tracks and see if a miracle can happen.

“I think Homestead is a great place to go and cap our season,” Bell said. “It’s a super fun and challenging track, and something that really rewards drivers, it’s a drivers track. It’s similar to Darlington in that Darlington is slippery. You have to change your line around and you have to change your driving style as the tires wear. It’s a drivers track and certainly a track where the good drivers and good teams succeed at.”

“Yeah, I mean, in that moment, like leaving Michigan, I think, if you’d have told me, ‘hey, you’re going to go into Homestead, second in points, 67 back,’ I’d be like, okay, yeah, that’s pretty good. But yeah, just the way that we got here, the way that the Chase unfolded, obviously has been disappointing. And yeah, I mean overall, I think three months from now, it, I’ll look back at it and maybe, I don’t know, man. Don’t know. It’s just we’re in the moment today and it is what it is. So, we’ll go out there and race hard.”

In six past Homestead starts, Bell is batting a perfect .500 record with three top-10s. The Oklahoma dirt racer is far from afraid of running the fence here, and could be Larson’s biggest roadblock for the win. In a year defined by Bell being second, the 20 will try to be one spot better for another clutch Homestead moment.

Tyler Reddick

2024’s highlight reel win by Tyler Reddick lives on in Homestead history as one of this track’s all-time great moments. That year’s last lap saw the No. 45 plant itself against the fence and motor by Ryan Blaney on the last lap for a very timely victory. This propelled 23XI Racing to their maiden Championship 4 showing, with Michael Jordan there celebrating. Two years removed from this great memory, Reddick now hopes to bookend his 2026 season with another win.

Reddick’s uncanny abilities at Homestead are largely responsible for him ever landing at 23XI Racing. His heroic moments to capture back-to-back Xfinity Series titles here piqued the interest of Denny Hamlin, and the rest in history. In six career Homestead starts, Reddick’s only been worse than eighth once. In a similar vein to Larson, Reddick’s dirt racing background fits here like a glove. Although no longer a championship contender, expect Reddick to be first against the wall Sunday as he chases a series-leading seventh win of the season.

William Byron

A winner again after Martinsville mastery last week, can William Byron go 2-2 to end 2026? The Hendrick No. 24 has won here before, taking 2021’s checkers in dominant fashion. Past that, Byron has three more top-10s here and laps led in four of the last five years. A new personal best of 362 laps out front a week ago proved that nobody could stay within Byron’s zip code. This speed could carry over at another track where Hendrick is poised for another big day.

“Hopefully we can go to Homestead and run really well there, too,” Byron said. “I think this is a good way to go into the offseason, off time. Like I said, I just wanted to win a race really bad. It’s tough to win in the Cup Series. You never want to get used to losing. That is a culture that you never want to shift, especially when you drive for the team we have, driving the No. 24 car. It’s important that we can win races. [The Martinsville win] feels really good. I think it just shows the effort we can put in.”

While not part of the championship conversation, Byron does still have a lot to race for at Homestead. Martinsville vaulted the 24 team up to ninth in points, within reach of fifth place. Even despite a down year by their standards, Byron can salvage a decent final points tally thanks to a late season surge.

With only one repeat winner over the last decade, the question of who can tame Homestead-Miami Speedway is very much wide open. Overlooking this year’s limited championship drama, Homestead is still a very influential race for many on the grid. The final green flag of the season flies Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. We are likely on the cusp of witnessing another three-time champion being crowned. At the same time, Homestead could also deliver a very entertaining battle for the win.

Written by Peter Stratta

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Photo Credit to Chris Graythen/Getty Images