Kevin Harvick Snubs Kyle Larson to Name the ‘2025 NASCAR Cup Driver of the year’

The 2025 season of NASCAR has culminated with the drivers taking home their coveted championship wins in the respective series. Corey Heim emerged victorious in the Truck Series championship, with Jesse Love denying Connor Zilisch the Xfinity Championship despite the latter’s dominant rookie season.

Moreover, Kyle Larson defeated the 2025 Cup Series’ winningest driver, Denny Hamlin, this year to win his second title. Now, ex-NASCAR star Kevin Harvick refuses to label Larson the driver of the year, despite his championship win.

Denny Hamlin failed to achieve his maiden Cup Series title in the 2025 season despite his dominant run this year. The JGR Veteran was on par to achieve a stellar title win if it wasn’t for William Byron‘s crash and untimely caution at the final stages of the race. Hamlin led the most laps in the race, but a poor tire strategy caused Kyle Larson to achieve the title win after leading zero laps throughout the Phoenix race.

Now, Kevin Harvick has taken note of the entire 2025 season and spoke candidly on which driver would be deserving of the title of the Cup Driver of the Year. Harvick reckoned that his pick would definitely be between Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Shane van Gisbergen, and William Byron. Though the 49-year-old believed every driver drove well this year, Hamlin deserved the title much more than anyone else.

Kevin Harvick asserted that, from an overall standpoint, Denny Hamlin dealt with a lot more in terms of championship loss as compared to other drivers. The 44-year-old finally had a shot at his dream, and it was all ruined in a matter of a few laps because of the playoff format. Harvick acknowledged that, though Hamlin did not win the title, his entire 2025 season was much better than everybody else’s so far.

From an overall standpoint, I think that Denny, with all the things he had going on, I just think he dealt with more than the rest of them, He didn’t win the championship, but the rest of it was better than everybody else’s, I believe.

Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.

Kevin Harvick claims Denny Hamlin had the ‘year of his career’ in 2025

Denny Hamlin has been racing in the pinnacle of stock racing for over two decades now. But, he has fallen short in winning the Cup Series title on multiple occasions despite making it into the Championship-4. Hamlin even crossed 700 race starts and won many races so late in his career, despite many people believing he couldn’t win many more.

Kevin Harvick was still complimentary of Denny Hamlin’s performance in the 2025 season. Harvick reckoned that the JGR veteran had the career of his year this time around.

Even with a new crew chief and going through multiple difficulties this year, the 44-year-old kept up with performances. Hamlin not only achieved many race wins this year, but was in contention for the Cup Series title up until the final five laps, which certainly is a great thing for him.

He had another career year with the way that they performed, New crew chief, all the things they went through this year, in contention to win the championship up until about five laps to go. A lot of wins

Kevin Harvick added.

Now, Denny Hamlin isn’t completely demotivated to hang up the racing suit already. Having talked about his retirement in a couple of years already, Hamlin is still going to show up in the 2026 season. Now, the 44-year-old will hope to come back as an even more dominant force in the coming year and finally win his long-awaited maiden Cup Series title.

Read More: Justin Marks Brands the Playoff Format as “a Good Experiment” That’s Ran Its Course

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