Team Penske's Ryan Blaney finished second during Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway, falling short of the race win and the Cup Series title. Beginning the race from the 17th position in the first stage, Blaney quickly ascended through the field as his car was great on longer green flag runs. The No. 12 Ford driver reached sixth by the end of the first stage. In the second stage, Blaney took advantage of a great pit stop to come out third and eventually took over the lead after green flag pit stops. Blaney would stay ahead of Bell even after the two battled side by side for the stage victory. In the final stage, Blaney continued to run inside the Top 5 even after the green flag pit stops. He decided to pit again after a lap 250 caution, where Zane Smith wrecked. This would have Blaney restart sixth on what was the race's final restart and steadily progressed to the front once again, passing Kyle Larson and William Byron before chasing down his teammate, Joey Logano, who was leading. Although Blaney got as close as two-tenths of a second behind Logano, he could not pass the No. 22 car and closed out the year as the championship runner-up.

Joey Logano won Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship race at Phoenix Raceway, which gave him the 2024 Cup Series title. Starting from the second position, Logano displayed one of the best cars in the field from the beginning, making it to the lead after 10 laps and he never looked back, winning the first stage of the race. In the second stage, Logano had a slow pit stop, sending him back to fifth, where he ran until after the first set of green flag pit stops. Logano's team improved his car enough where he went to third by the end of the second stage. In the final stage, Logano restarted fourth but recovered back to second until the final set of green flag pit stops. Then, on lap 250, the caution came out for Zane Smith crashing, leading Logano back to pit road one more time and setting him up for what was the race's final restart in the fifth position. Logano quickly captured the lead once again and made a sizable back to second, which would be cut down in the closing laps as Logano's teammate Ryan Blaney had a faster car on longer green flag runs. Logano blocked Blaney enough times and held on to win the race and obtain his third Cup Series championship title.

Tyler Reddick finished fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs after finishing sixth in the season finale at Phoenix. He spent most of the race in the back half of the top ten and never really had the speed of even William Byron, let alone Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, who were the two fastest drivers all race. However, the regular season champion frequently struggled for speed in the playoffs perhaps because 23XI Racing is being distracted by its lawsuit against NASCAR so it's not surprising he wasn't as fast as he was in the March race when he tied for the most laps led with his boss Denny Hamlin. Since Reddick barely made the Round of 8 and probably would have missed the Championship 4 if not for his epic pass on Blaney at Homestead, he's probably satisfied enough just to make it that far.

William Byron was arguably lucky to make it to the final round of the NASCAR playoffs at Phoenix yesterday after Christopher Bell was penalized last week at Martinsville, but he did his best and posed a stout challenge to Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, the Penske drivers who finished 1-2 in the race and the championship. Although Hendrick Motorsports has rarely been able to match Penske's speed at Phoenix lately, Byron took his shot by long-pitting on his final stop, then staying out of the pits while the other leaders pitted under caution a few laps later. Since his teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson didn't pit until the caution, he had a bit of a buffer on the ensuing restart but the Hendrick trio could not match the Penske drivers' speed and Byron was relegated to a third-place finish in the race and championship.