When Chase Elliott took the checkered flag at Atlanta Motor Speedway in P1, under the bright Saturday night lights, it was not only a milestone 20th NASCAR Cup Series victory for the local boy, but the third weekend in a row we have seen a new winner in 2025.
With eight regular-season races left before the postseason begins, including at least four, maybe more, potential wild-card races on the docket – Chicago Street Course, Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen International and Daytona International Speedway all spring to mind – might this year finally be the year when “win and you’re in” doesn’t prove to be true for the NASCAR playoffs?
So let’s take a step back for a minute, all the way to Jan. 30, 2014, when NASCAR announced a major overhaul of their playoff system.
Initially referred to as “The Chase for the [then title sponsor] Cup,” the format sought to reward drivers for winning. But not only that, the intention was to create a “Game 7” moment each and every season with the final race being contested by the top four drivers after three rounds of eliminations.
The goal then, with the new format, was to put a hitherto unprecedented focus on winning vs pointing your way to a title (we’re looking at you, Matt Kenseth). And while no one actually said these exact words, the mantra for the regular season swiftly became “Win and you’re in….”
And to date, in the 11 previous iterations of this format, we’ve not had a situation where we’ve had more than 16 winners in the regular season. Win and you’re in has proved to be exactly the case.
The closest we came to challenging the theory was in 2022, when Austin Dillon’s thrilling victory in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway in the final race of the regular season made him the 16th winner. As it was, that year, winless Ryan Blaney pointed his way into the playoff field due to Kurt Busch’s season- and career-ending concussion suffered at Pocono Raceway. But that is as close as we have come to smashing the “win and you’re in” mantra.
For those keeping score at home, we have had 12 unique winners in 18 races in total in 2025, breaking down as follows: Three wins apiece for Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell, and one win each for Josh Berry, Blaney, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Elliott, Joey Logano and Shane van Gisbergen.
As of today, 12 drivers are currently “locked in” with four spots still available based on points to complete the 16-driver field over the next eight races. But, and it’s a rather large but, to be fair, with the way this season is unfolding, the possibility of more than 16 winners seriously exists.
Let’s start by looking at drivers, with a history of race wins at the top echelon, still chasing a maiden 2025 Cup Series victory – it’s a robust list: Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher, Alex Bowman, Bubba Wallace, Erik Jones, A.J. Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Michael McDowell, Daniel Suarez and Brad Keselowski.
Then there’s the two young guns, Carson Hocevar and Ty Gibbs, who you would not be surprised to see grab their first-ever Cup victory. Both could, and conceivably should, have already won a race this season. It feels, especially for Hocevar, that it’s just a matter of time. And what about Ryan Preece, who at times this year has run really well – he could win at Richmond Raceway, for example. And all this discounts the possibility of a total wild card, Harrison Burton-style, at Daytona to close out the regular season.
Now, if we do end up with 17 winners, there is of course a tie-breaking procedure.
All drivers with multiple wins make it automatically and the remaining drivers with one win would be ranked according to regular season points. The driver with the lowest points total would then drop out of the playoffs.
As things stand, and granted this isn’t a problem as of now, van Gisbergen would be the driver to miss out given his lowly position in the overall points standings. But given his prowess on the road courses, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him pick up a win at one of the three races where we turn left and right before the playoff field is set – possibly as soon as this weekend on the streets of Chicago.
So the big question is, will it happen? Will 2025 be the year we finally get 17 regular-season winners? I’m going to hedge my bets a little and say maybe. I can see a world where three, even four more drivers win a first race of the season, but do I think we’ll get five?
No, I don’t. But I’m not ruling it out.
Danny Peters has written for Frontstretch since 2006. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.