NASCAR: Why 4 winners aren’t locked into the playoffs

There have been 13 different winners so far in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season. Only nine are locked into the playoffs.

The possibility for more than 16 different winners in the 26-race 2021 NASCAR Cup Series regular season still exists, even with just four races remaining on the schedule.

We have seen 13 drivers win at least one of the season’s first 22 races, and given where the four remaining regular season races are set to be held, 16 or 17 different winners is truly not out of the question.

This would naturally put the playoff picture in a spot where it has not been before: a situation where “win and in” isn’t truly applicable and at least one winner would be bumped out of the playoffs.

More from NASCAR Cup Series

• NASCAR Cup Series: New team set to compete in 2024
• NASCAR: Surprising name continuously linked to new seat
• NASCAR driver at risk of missing the Daytona 500?
• NASCAR set for rare appearance last seen 13 years ago
• NASCAR team adds third car, names driver for 2024 Daytona 500

The reason for this is the fact that the playoff system isn’t truly a “win and in” system. The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season champion, whether he has a race win (or more) or not, plus the next 15 drivers who rank highest in wins. The tiebreaker among single-race winners, if needed, is points.

So winning twice is technically the only way to truly lock up a playoff berth before the closing stages of the regular season when the advanced math comes into play.

In fact, with four regular season races remaining, there are multiple single-race winners who are locked in, since they cannot drop out of that top 15 on wins — with of course, the points tiebreaker considered.

But there are still four who can potentially drop out.

Let’s look at a worst case scenario, one which could eliminate multiple winners, to explore which single-race winners still aren’t 100% locked in.

Let’s say that each of the regular season’s four remaining races produces a new winner, and that Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who leads the point standings despite being winless, isn’t one of them. Let’s also say that Hamlin keeps his points lead and wins the regular season points title to secure a playoff berth, even as a winless driver.

That puts us at 18 playoff-eligible drivers leading into a 16-driver playoff, meaning that two race winners will be eliminated. Right now, the lowest two race winners, points-wise, are Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola.

Without winning, a driver can score a maximum of 55 points in each race: 10 by winning stage one, 10 by winning stage two, and 35 for finishing the race in second place. The last place race finisher (anybody from 36th or worse, in fact) scores one point, meaning that in any given race, 54 points can be made up on any given competitor — without winning, that is.

Over the course of four races, 216 points can be made up on any given competitor without winning, assuming both drivers in question compete in all four events.

So right now, all one-race winners who are not at least 216 points ahead of McDowell have technically not yet secured a playoff spot.

Why McDowell? Because it is important to clarify that, even if Hamlin doesn’t win, there is still the possibility of having four more winners who currently sit higher than both McDowell (19th place, 448 points) and Almirola (T-23rd, 377) in the point standings.

There is no guarantee that, in the case of four more winners, any of them will win from below either one of McDowell or Almirola, as there are six drivers — even excluding Hamlin — in the top 18 in the point standings who have not yet won a race in 2021.

So we can use McDowell’s point total as the 16th/17th place cutoff and, under this “worst case scenario”, list him as the 17th driver and Almirola as the 18th.

Naturally, these two drivers are not locked into the playoffs quite yet.

Now let’s get to the two others who aren’t either, as they are not 216 points ahead of McDowell.

Those two drivers are Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, who sit in 14th and 15th place in the point standings, respectively. Busch is 104 points ahead of McDowell with 552 while Bell is 20 points behind Busch with 532.

So while they are considered to be “locked in”, Busch and Bell still haven’t truly secured playoff berths.

The other single-race winners include Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron and Team Penske teammates Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski, and all of them are well above 216 points ahead of McDowell.

The multi-race winners so far this season include Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson (four wins), Alex Bowman (three) and Chase Elliott (two) as well as Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Martin Truex Jr. (three) and Kyle Busch (two).

So these nine drivers are the only drivers mathematically locked into the postseason with four races remaining on the regular season schedule.

NASCAR Cup Series action is scheduled to resume this afternoon at Watkins Glen International with the Go Bowling at The Glen, which is set to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET. The series is currently nearing the conclusion of a three-week hiatus as a result of NBC’s broadcast commitments for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.