After the Round of 16 concluded at Bristol Motor Speedway Saturday night (Sept. 13), the list of remaining playoff drivers was unsurprising.
Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, and Team Penske advanced three drivers each to the second round of the postseason. It is likely that the 2025 Cup Series champion will come from one of those three organizations.
JGR certainly took care of business in the Round of 16, with Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell each winning a race to sweep the round for the team. Hamlin is at the top of the heap after the points reset, followed closely by HMS drivers William Byron and Kyle Larson.
However, Team Penske still has to be the favorite for the championship.
Until the next Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, there is going to be a lot of talk about how fast the JGR Toyotas are and if anyone can keep up with them.
Yet it is the Penske drivers, particularly Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, who have a proven track record of playoff success in the Next Gen era. Neither Logano or Blaney, nor their teammate Austin Cindric, completely stayed out of trouble during the Round of 16, but all three drivers executed well when they were put in difficult situations. This high level of execution has been critical to Penske’s success the last three years, and it makes the team’s drivers dangerous competitors in 2025.
So far in this year’s playoffs, Blaney is probably the best example. He and the No. 12 team have faced some challenges in the playoffs, particularly spins at Darlington Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway that could have seriously jeopardized both races.
Yet it never felt like Blaney was ever in real danger of getting eliminated during the Round of 16. His 18th-place result at Darlington prevented a bad situation from getting any worse, and he rebounded to finish fourth at Gateway.
As for Bristol, Blaney survived the tire-grinding chaos to win the first stage and stay near the front of the pack most of the night. Even a slow final pit stop did not trip up the No. 12 team too much, with Blaney racing to another fourth-place finish. That’s Blaney’s fourth top-five finish in the last five races, the latest in a nine-race stretch where Darlington is his only finish outside the top 10.
For a team that was plagued by DNFs earlier in the season, the No. 12 appears to have righted the ship and perhaps put Blaney on the path to a second title.
Meanwhile, Logano has not matched Blaney’s raw pace, but his finishing positions through the Round of 16 were very similar.
The No. 22 team left Darlington below the playoff cut line by three points, which had the potential to make advancement difficult for Logano. However, he responded with back-to-back fifth-place finishes at Gateway and Bristol, easily advancing to the second round after all. Those finishes account for two of Logano’s five top fives on the whole season. In typical fashion, the No. 22 team is heating up as the playoffs begin.
Logano’s top five at Bristol was particularly impressive. Unlike Gateway, where he had a fast car and steadily worked his way forward, Logano struggled early on at Bristol and used a lot of sticker tires quickly. The No. 22 team had to put on scuffs for the final run to the checkers, but Logano did not lose much time in the final laps of the race. He and his team have not been flashy, but they have been efficient in earning the points they need to stay in the game.
Cindric and the No. 2 team also deserve accolades for their Bristol performance, even though it nearly ended in disaster. Entering the night race on the bubble, and going to a track where they have not typically been strong, Cindric and his team were clearly prepared for the night race. He led 10 laps and scooped up five stage points in what was shaping up to be the best Bristol race of his Cup Series career.
But in the closing laps, the No. 2 car caught fire from a buildup of rubber, and smoke filled the cockpit. Cindric brought the car to pit road as his crew battled the flames, knowing that if he jumped out of the car, his race would be over and he likely would not advance.
Yet Cindric stayed put, showing a lot of courage and faith in his team. The No. 2 was able to limp to the finish, taking the last transfer spot by 10 points. Cindric has a tough road to advance any further, but the gutsy performance by the whole No. 2 team likely saved their championship hopes.
Now, some fans might point out that the Gibbs drivers were the ones who actually won all the Round of 16 races and therefore had the best execution. That is true for each driver in the race that they won, but there is reason to be concerned about the team’s ability to close out races overall.
In Bell’s case, it was only a week earlier at Gateway that he expressed a lot of frustration over the radio about his team’s struggle to lead laps and win races. Victories tend to help fix things, but Bell is not up front leading laps at the rate that Hamlin and Briscoe have been doing. It still feels like the No. 20 team is not quite at the same level as they were earlier in the season.
For Briscoe and the No. 19 team, putting together complete races remains a challenge. The team is way faster than it was earlier in the year, which has allowed Briscoe to run up front and lead laps more often, especially in the first three playoff races. Yet the No. 19 team still had to overcome a lot of pit road issues at Gateway, forcing them to use an alternate strategy to get back to the top five.
At Bristol, Briscoe had the fastest car in the second half of the race, but a pit stop with less than 20 laps to go killed his chances of earning the victory. Briscoe’s speed could carry him deep into the playoffs, but the strategy backfires and pit road issues make the No. 19 team hard to trust.
Then there is Hamlin, who once again finds himself on the playoff roller coaster. One moment he is winning races and instructing everyone to get on the bandwagon. A week later, he is struggling in a race where many would have considered him a favorite. Year after year, it seems like he and the No. 11 team can never avoid trouble in the postseason long enough to reach the title.
Hamlin has as good a chance as anyone in 2025, but he has been in this position many times before and always come up empty handed. Maybe this season will be different, but there is no way to know that right now.
For as chaotic and random as motorsports can be, some things chance less from year to year than many fans realize. In the Cup Series, Penske always appears to be a step behind Gibbs and Hendrick going into the playoffs, only for the Captain to get the last laugh. Even this year, while JGR is off to a hot start, Penske has the track record of playoff excellence, and there are already signs that the team’s drivers are stepping up their game.
Until someone else takes the championship for themselves, Penske is the team to beat.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.