The calendar reads 2026. The playoffs are no more, and The Chase has returned after a 12-year absence. What better way to start the countdown to the Clash and Speedweeks by than finding out who would’ve won the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship in the new format?
The name might be identical, but the revamped Chase has several key differences from the formats NASCAR used from 2004 to 2013. If you aren’t already familiar with the new rules, here’s a crash course on how the format and the revamped points system work:
- The top 16 drivers in regular season points after 26 races will qualify for the Chase. Unlike the elimination format, a race win no longer guarantees a spot.
- Stages, stage points and the Xfinity Fastest Lap point remain unchanged; playoff points are eliminated.
- A race win is now worth 55 points instead of 40, which ups the maximum points for a single race to 76 (86 for the Coca-Cola 600).
- The driver that wins the regular season championship will start The Chase with 2,100 points. Second will start with 2,075; third 2,075; fourth 2,060; all the way down to 2,000 points for 16th.
- The driver with the most points at the conclusion of the 10-race Chase wins the championship.
To set the stage for The Chase, we first need to calculate the 2025 regular season standings under the new rules. The following chart shows the drivers that were top 16 in points at the end of the 2025 regular season, but our work isn’t done just yet.
Each win gains an extra 15 points in the new points format, so Denny Hamlin, for example, would’ve earned 60 bonus points by virtue of his four regular season wins. Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson would’ve earned 45 bonus points with three wins a piece, and so on.
With the 2025 regular season standings adjusted for wins, here are the 16 drivers that would’ve qualified for The Chase:
The biggest change? The inclusion of Shane van Gisbergen, who finished 24th in the 2025 regular season with 485 points. But with four wins in the regular season, van Gisbergen gained an extra 60 points to bring his Chase total to 545, which was enough for him to grab the 16th and final spot over Ty Gibbs by a mere two points.
Further up the ladder, Hamlin’s wins allowed him to jump from sixth in regular season standings to third, which gained him an extra 15 points for the start of The Chase. Larson gained a further 10 points by jumping from third to second, while Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher each lost 10 seeding points after dropping two spots.
The drivers at the top of the regular season standings are by no means breathing easy, but they are given far more of a reward and a points cushion now than they would have in the 2004-13 Chase, which gifted first place with little more than a position’s worth of points over second.
In this format, Byron enters the final 10 races with a third-of-a-race lead over second place and a full-race lead over 11th. It’s an advantage, but not enough of an advantage for anyone to run away with it.
So who ended up winning it all under The Chase in 2025? After adding the seeding points, the points each driver scored in the final 10 races and the extra 15 points per race win, the champion of The Chase ended up being the same driver who hoisted the Bill France Cup in real life: Larson.
Entering The Chase as the second seed, Larson ironically didn’t win any of the final 10 races, but his 75 seed points and his 387 points scored over the final 10 races were good enough for him to defeat Bell by 17 points.
The championship came down to the wire, as Larson, Bell, Byron and Chase Briscoe entered the final race at Phoenix Raceway separated by just 12 points. Six drivers finished within 47 points of each other at the end of the season, and the top seven seeds swept the top seven spots in the final standings.
As teams, drivers and fans gear up for a new-look 2026 season, can Larson defend his championship and join rare company with his third Cup Series crown? Or will someone new conquer The Chase in its return and celebrate a title in South Florida in 10 month’s time?
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
People seemed to be upset about Denny losing the championship on a bad restart. The changes didn’t help that at all. We’ll see. I still hate pit stops because of the stages. They wind up being competition yellows.
I read the title. Who cares?
Not I.
These sorts of exercises are futile, because every bit of strategy, R&D, and setup was done with last year’s system in mind. There will never be any way of knowing who would have won under any other system.
Some people just don’t get it or want to get it. It is apples and oranges.