Lando Norris of the McLaren F-1 team is now leading that series point championship over teammate Oscar Piastri by one point. Third place driver Max Verstappen is thirty-six points behind. There are four races to go in the only global auto racing series for the rich and famous. In case you were wondering if I am the only one who thinks that McLaren is orchestrating the 2025 championship battle outcome, Norris, who is a good guy, was resoundingly booed when he led every lap and won the Mexico F-1 race from the pole last weekend. Contrary to critics of season-long point tabulation being the basis for determining who is the champion driver, this year’s F-1 battle is a three-way battle where any one of these drivers can claim the title in Abu Dhabi in December. Stay tuned.
The NASCAR final, winner-take-the championship title fields are set for this weekend’s closing event in Phoenix Arizona. In the CUP, top series, the four finalists are Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, and Kyle Larson. There will be two Toyota drivers racing for Joe Gibbs and two Chevrolet drivers racing for Rick Hendrick. There will be no Fords or Roger Penske drivers in this face-off for the title. Penske and his Ford drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney have won the NASCAR championship for the last three years at Phoenix where everyone feels they have a distinct advantage and would have won again had they made the final four. Hamlin, Briscoe, and Byron earned their spots by winning in the last segment of the three-stages that make up the qualifying races. Only Larson got in this final contest based on points. He beat fifth place and first non-qualifier Christopher Bell by six points in the final race last weekend at Martinsville. Byron won at Martinsville by qualifying number one, leading the most laps, winning both stages and the race. He even scored the fastest lap of the race. One might think that Byron is the favorite to win the title by beating the other three finalists in a race that will be won by a Penske Ford driver. Maybe. Larson is the only driver in the final who has won the CUP Series title before. This should provide some advantage. Maybe. Byron has been in the last three finals and enters the race with the most momentum. He and Larson drive Chevrolets for the most powerful team in this series. Hendrick Motorsports is seeking his fifteenth Cup series title. Rick Hendrick helped get Joe Gibbs into NASCAR CUP series racing. Gibbs Racing is now the second-best team in that series and has veteran Hamlin seeking his first CUP series title to go with his sixty CUP wins. He is overdue and a sentimental favorite as was Dale Earnhardt Sr., when seeking his first Daytona 500 win for decades before finally adding that goal to his list of achievements. Briscoe is new to the playoffs driving a Gibbs Toyota. His crew chief is also new to this final contest. If it were not for luck playing such a significant role in the outcome, I would mark Briscoe as the least likely to win this Sunday. The other three drivers have equal chances. The pundits are picking Byron. Second seems to be Larson with the Hamlin camp split with wanting him to win and hoping he does not due to the lawsuit that he is part of against NASCAR for restraint of trade law violations. The one given is that we will all see this play out amidst a thirty-six-car cluster of drivers who all want to win and stay out of the way of the four whose race performance equates to millions of dollars and the highest status in American stock car racing.
The Xfinity series has Connor Zilisch, Justin Allgaier, Jesse Love and Carson Kvapil as the final four. Kvapil has one Xfinity series wins, and it occurred last weekend at Martinsville. Zilisch has ten wins, eighteen top five finishes and has totally dominated the class. There are strong opinions that if Zilisch does not win the Xfinity series championship, the system for determining that outcome is fatally flawed. Most everyone agrees and that is why the one-race winner take all at the hands of lady luck will not return in 2026. Among the four final contenders are three drivers racing for Kelly Earnhardt-Miller [Dale Jr.] and one, Jesse Love, who drives for Richard Childress.
The Craftsman truck series has the same problem. Cory Heim has dominated that program and has eleven wins. Finalist Tyler Ankrum has one win. Ty Majeski and Kayden Honeycutt have no wins in the 24-race contest, which is the truck series. All four drivers will start even and race for the championship. One bit of bad luck could replace a real 2025 driver champion with another driver who, at best, scored one win. Not a good measure of a season-long sporting competition. Let us hope that Zilisch and Heim win in Phoenix and that NASCAR produces a three-race face-off for the final four contenders and that the stages, winner take all and the playoff format for twelve, not sixteen, drivers is the 2026 format. Stay tuned.