Sunday afternoon, the NASCAR Cup Series is set to take on Texas Motor Speedway for the first of two times in 2025.
So, which drivers are the hottest ahead of race day in the Lone Star State?
A certain trio stands tall above all the rest.
Let’s explore what sets them apart.
Kyle Larson
One of three NASCAR Cup Series drivers with multiple wins in the first 10 races of 2025, Kyle Larson rolls into Texas red-hot. How red-hot?
Well, the Hendrick Motorsports driver just finished second at Talladega Superspeedway, a track where he historically struggles.
The race before that — at Bristol Motor Speedway — Larson steamrolled the competition, leading 411 of 500 laps en route to a commanding victory.
DOMINATED. Kyle Larson puts on a clinic to WIN at Bristol Motor Speedway! #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/KrWoxD1Sc3
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 13, 2025
In his last five starts, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion has triumphed twice and finished outside the top five only once. Larson, who sits second in the standings, is the series leader this year in laps led (506) and stage wins (five).
Denny Hamlin
Although things didn’t go all that spectacular for Denny Hamlin last weekend at Talladega, where he finished 21st, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver had been on a tear before arriving in Alabama.
In the six races prior, Hamlin took the checkered flag first or second in four of them — winning twice. He prevailed on consecutive weekends, cashing in at two of the sport’s most challenging and most fabled tracks: Martinsville Speedway and Darlington Raceway.
Hamlin ranks third in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, hindered primarily by a little bit of a slow start. But after failing to secure a top-five finish in the season’s first three events, the veteran driver and three-time Daytona 500 winner turned it up a notch.
William Byron
William Byron opened the NASCAR Cup Series season with a bang by joining an elite list of back-to-back Daytona 500 winners in dramatic fashion.
BACK TO BACK DAYTONA 500 CHAMPIONS!!! pic.twitter.com/yF4feqvYmD
— William Byron (@WilliamByron) February 17, 2025
Byron is winless in nine starts since that glorious day at The World Center of Racing, but he’s nevertheless the points leader with Texas on tap.
Buoyed by a series-high seven top-10 finishes matched only by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson, Byron has been a model of consistency in his No. 24 Chevrolet. He’s placed outside the top 12 only twice and taken the checkered flag outside the top 25 on just one occasion.
Byron has yet to finish outside of the 20s, his worst outcome being a 27th-place result at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Week Two. Byron’s Atlanta finish is forgivable, though, considering it happened on the heels of his Daytona 500 victory and the exhausting whirlwind few days that followed.
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