The 2019 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs have arrived and 16 drivers have a chance to win the championship. Which drivers are in the best position to do so?
The 2019 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are scheduled to get underway this Sunday, September 15 with the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A total of 16 drivers qualified for the four-round, 10-race playoffs, with 10 doing so with at least one regular season victory and the other six doing so as a result of their regular season point totals.
Playoff links
Before this 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval gets the playoffs underway, let’s have a look at how each of the 16 playoff drivers stack up against one another.
NOTE: These power rankings are not associated with the weekly formulated NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings. For this week’s edition, click here.
#16
Ryan Newman’s only finish higher than seventh place this season came in the July race at Daytona International Speedway, where the finishing order might as well have been determined by a random name picker. He has done the best to get the most out of his equipment in his first season driving for Roush Fenway Racing, but the fact that he had to squeeze his way into the playoffs even doing that could spell a very early exit.
#15 through #13
Like Ryan Newman, Aric Almirola recorded just one top six finish in the regular season, and his most recent top 10 finish came in the July race at Daytona International Speedway. The driver who came only a few laps from a miraculous Championship 4 run one year ago will need to step it up big-time if he has any aspirations of even making it beyond the round of 16.
Inconsistency plagued Clint Bowyer throughout the entire regular season, and it nearly kept him from qualifying for the playoffs. He is set to enter the playoffs riding a three-race streak of top seven finishes, but that follows an 11-race streak during which his average finish was 21.82 and he finished in 34th place or worse on four occasions. Even one bad race in the round of 16 could make that round his last in this year’s playoffs.
Alex Bowman had a “slow” first half of the regular season. Yet despite the fact that his second half of the regular season featured his first career Cup Series victory, it was arguably even slower. His victory was his only finish higher than 10th place throughout the final 13 races of the 26-race regular season, and he has recorded just four other finishes of higher than 10th all year. That needs to change in order for him to even advance to the round of 12, which he did manage to do last year.
#12 through #10
Crew chief Chad Knaus nearly got a struggling Jimmie Johnson to the round of 12 last season, and he would have had Johnson not wrecked on the final lap of the round of 16 finale. William Byron, meanwhile, isn’t struggling ahead of his first career Cup Series playoff appearance. He recorded five top eight finishes in the final 10 races of the regular season, including three top four finishes, the first three top four finishes of his career. He is also the only driver who hasn’t finished a single race outside of the top 24 all year long. He should advance to at least the round of 12 even though he is the lone playoff driver with zero career victories.
Erik Jones is another driver who has been plagued by inconsistency. He is set to enter the playoffs with one victory and three finishes of 18th place or lower in the last four races of the regular season, a four-race stint that follows a four-race streak of top four finishes. He is capable of winning the championship if he can just be consistent, as evidenced by the fact that only three drivers in the field, all former champions, have finished in the top three in more races than he has this year.
There’s not much to say about Kyle Larson other than it almost seems as though he has forgotten how to win. Aside of Ryan Newman and the winless Byron, his win drought of more than two years is the longest among the 16 playoff drivers. He has run well as of late with eight top 10 finishes, including five top five finishes, in the final 11 races of the regular season, but there always seems to be something that keeps him from winning, or in some cases, securing a good result. He has never advanced to the round of 8, and the 2019 season just doesn’t feel like it will be the season to produce such an appearance, but he could make things interesting if he does.
#9 through #7
Ryan Blaney is fully capable of running strong at almost any track, but like many drivers previously discussed in this article, he simply hasn’t proven to be able to shut the door when it counts, and above all, his season has been plagued by inconsistency. If he can open up the floodgates with a win or two in the playoffs, he can contend for the championship, but for the time being, he figures to be a mid-pack playoff driver like he was in his first two playoff appearances in the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Kurt Busch may have only won one race in his first regular season driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, but his consistency has made him a popular dark-horse pick to advance to the Championship 4, as his average finish of 11.61 is the sixth best among all drivers. But consistency may not be enough to make him a legitimate championship contender unless he can couple that consistency with an occasional victory, and he has won only one race in September or later since the 2009 season.
Brad Keselowski is more than capable of getting hot and going on a deep playoff run, as he has demonstrated on several occasions in the past. But without a victory in nearly four months, does he have what it takes to come out on top of a playoff field that has seen nine different winners since he last made a trip to victory lane?
#6 through #4
Martin Truex Jr. may be one of the biggest wild cards of the playoffs, as hard as that may be to believe. He finished the regular season tied atop the wins list, but he hasn’t won a race in over two and a half months. Additionally, he was a non-factor in each of the regular season’s final three races after going on a four-race streak of top six results. Is the 2017 champion primed to make his second championship run in three years, or is he going cold at the wrong time?
Joey Logano proved last season that you don’t need a stellar regular season to win the championship. Though he only finished this year’s regular season with two victories, he had a better regular season this year than last year, nearly winning the regular season title, and he did it despite the fact that his second place in the regular season finale was his first top 12 finish in over a month and a half. Could he be heating up at the right time for the second year in a row?
Chase Elliott has quietly been one of the most consistent drivers heading into the playoffs, posting an average finish of 8.60 in the final five races of the regular season, the second best among all drivers. He finished the regular season as the highest Chevrolet driver in the championship standings despite the fact that he endured a seven-race drought of top 10 finishes during which his average finish was a disastrous 26.43. For the first time, we can say that, entering the playoffs, he has proven that he can contend for race victories regularly. He is the only Chevrolet driver who has won more than one race in the last two years, and he has won five. After 2017 was the first season since the 2000 season during which no Chevrolet drivers finished in the top four in the standings, can the fan-favorite get Chevrolet back to the Championship 4?
#3 through #1
Kyle Busch is a virtual lock to qualify for the Championship 4 pretty much ever season. That is no different this season; he was the regular season champion and he scored by far the most playoff points throughout the season. But he has recently been outdriven at the site of Championship 4, Homestead-Miami Speedway, by fellow championship contenders, and he is on his longest win drought since he went more than one year without a victory from the 2016 season to the 2017 season. Perhaps most alarmingly, he has been the highest finishing Joe Gibbs Racing driver just twice in the last 12 races, and one of those instances was via a 14th place finish in the crazy wild card of a race at Daytona International Speedway in early July.
There is not a more accomplished NASCAR Cup Series driver currently competing in the sport who has not won a championship than Denny Hamlin. Fortunately for Hamlin, he has a great chance to secure his first career title this year. Because of the success of teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch, Hamlin flew under the radar for much of the regular season, but he established himself as a serious title contender by winning two races late amid a streak of six consecutive top five finishes and five consecutive top three finishes. Could 2019 finally be his year?
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Nobody is set to enter the playoffs hotter than Kevin Harvick. It took him until the regular season’s 20th race to finish in the top three, and he did so with a victory.
He has now taken a series-high three victories in the last seven races and two victories in the last four races, and he is set to enter the playoffs coming off of a victory as well.
After securing a career-high eight victories last season but failing to win a championship, Harvick is out to prove a point, especially to those who counted him out early on in the 2019 season after he struggled to win.
Be sure to tune in to each and every one of the 10 races in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, beginning with the South Point 400 this Sunday, September 15. NBC Sports Network is set to broadcast this race live from Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET.