NASCAR: Without playoffs, who would have been 2019 champion?

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs have existed since the 2004 season, meaning the champions haven’t always been the drivers who have scored the most points. Without playoffs, who would have won this year’s championship?

In each of the last 16 years going back to 2004, playoffs have been made a part of the 36-race NASCAR Cup Series seasons and determined the champions in each season.

In the majority of these last 16 seasons, nine to be exact, the driver who ultimately ended up being crowned champion differed from the driver who, over the course of the entire 36-race season, racked up the most points.

This year, it was Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch who won the championship.

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Busch held off the other three Championship 4 drivers in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Busch won this race in his #18 Toyota while teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin finished in second and 10th place in their #19 Toyota and #11 Toyota, respectively, and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick finished in 10th in his #4 Ford

But would Busch have been crowned champion this year had it not been for the playoffs? If not, who would the champion have been using a points-only format?

Of course, certain situations would have caused certain drivers to approach things differently because of the strategy involved in getting into the playoffs and going about scoring stage points as well as additional playoff points via race wins and stage wins.

But if we were to take a look at this season and base the championship standings on what they would have been without the playoffs (including actually counting stage points for the Championship 4 drivers in the season finale), the result may be surprising.

The champion would have scored 1,330 points, and the top two would have been separated by just two points, the top three would have been separated by just nine points, the top four would have been separated by just 22 points and the top five would have been separated by just 37 points.

Here is how the final championship standings would have looked had the season been one long 36-race season, not a 26-race regular season leading into four-round, 10-race playoffs.

Rank – Driver – Points
1st – Kyle Busch – 1330
2nd – Kevin Harvick – 1328
3rd – Joey Logano – 1321
4th – Martin Truex Jr. – 1308
5th – Denny Hamlin – 1293
6th – Brad Keselowski – 1127
7th – Ryan Blaney – 1085
8th – Kyle Larson – 1064
9th – Chase Elliott – 1059
10th – Kurt Busch – 1027
11th – William Byron – 991
12th – Alex Bowman – 964
13th – Clint Bowyer – 953
14th – Aric Almirola – 931
15th – Erik Jones – 884
16th – Ryan Newman – 871
17th – Daniel Suarez – 846
18th – Jimmie Johnson – 835
19th – Paul Menard – 777
20th – Chris Buescher – 729
21st – Austin Dillon – 700
22nd – Matt DiBenedetto – 699
23rd – Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – 679
24th – Ty Dillon – 613
25th – Daniel Hemric – 530
26th – Ryan Preece – 507
27th – Michael McDowell – 485
28th – Darrell Wallace Jr. – 437
29th – Corey LaJoie – 401
30th – David Ragan – 388
31st – Matt Tifft – 352

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In total, only seven of the 16 points champions have won the official NASCAR Cup Series championships since the playoffs were implemented ahead of the 2004 season. Kyle Busch is the first driver to pull this off since Martin Truex Jr. pulled it off in the 2017 season. Will the points champion be the official 2020 champion? The 2020 season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, February 15 with the 62nd annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

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