NASCAR: Alex Bowman hasn’t clinched a playoff berth

Alex Bowman secured his first win of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season in Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but it hasn’t necessarily locked him into the playoffs.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman took advantage of a late pit stop for two tires and held off teammate Kyle Larson to win Sunday afternoon’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, giving him his first victory of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.

The pit stop came during a late caution flag period caused by a wreck by Richard Petty Motorsports’ Erik Jones, which led to a spin by 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace. At this point, there were just three laps remaining in the 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. were the two drivers battling for the lead ahead of Trackhouse Racing Team’s Ross Chastain, and it looked as though Busch had the race won. But all three drivers came into the pits and took four tires.

Bowman, Larson, and teammate William Byron did not, and they beat those three out of the pits. Larson, now the race leader, took the high lane for the restart with two laps remaining in the now 274-lap race, with Bowman on the bottom.

The driver of the #48 Chevrolet was able to hold off last week’s winner at Auto Club Speedway and earn the seventh victory of his career by 0.178 seconds ahead of the #5 Chevrolet.

But despite fact that the playoff format is considered a “win and in” format, Bowman technically isn’t locked into the playoffs. In fact, nobody is.

The 16 playoff spots go to the top finisher in the regular season point standings, whether he wins a race or not, and then the 15 drivers who rank highest in wins. If there are more winners than available spots, the tiebreaker among the single-race winners is points. If there are not, then the remaining spots are filled by the non-winners via points.

With just three of the 26 races on this year’s regular season schedule in the books, there is still a chance that there will be more than 16 winners before the playoffs begin. This was a discussion last year when there were seven different winners in the first seven races and 11 in the first 12.

While that didn’t happen in 2021 and is still an unlikely scenario for 2022, it is one worth considering. With the Next Gen car, the playing field appears to be quite level, and there seem to be more contenders to win races this year than usual.

Even through just three races, you can easily come up with a list of at least 16 drivers who “could have” or “should have” been to victory lane.

In addition to Larson and Bowman, Team Penske’s Austin Cindric has already been victorious this year, having won the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Larson currently leads the standings, with Cindric in fourth place and Bowman in eighth.

The only official way to lock into the playoffs at this point in the season is by winning more than once, as no more than 13 drivers can win two races in the regular season; therefore, a winner of two or more races cannot finish the regular season outside of the top 15 in wins.

But even then, a driver would technically need to remain within the top 30 in the point standings to keep playoff eligibility. However, with just 32 full-time drivers, any driver who wins twice doesn’t really have to worry about that.

Will a fourth different winner emerge in the 2022 season’s fourth race, the Ruoff Mortgage 500? This race is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Phoenix Raceway beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 13. If you have not yet started your free trial of FuboTV, do so today!