NASCAR: The round of 8 team whose driver is already eliminated

One team is set to enter the round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs still in championship contention, but their driver is already eliminated.

The round of 8 field is set following the round of 12 finale at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval last Sunday afternoon, leaving eight contenders for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series driver championship and eight contenders for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series owner championship.

But of the eight teams left in contention for the owner championship, only seven have drivers still in the running for the driver title.

The 16 teams that qualified for the owner playoffs did so because they found victory lane at some point during the regular season. However, the #45 23XI Racing team’s driver, Kurt Busch, opted to withdraw his name from the playoffs since he remained sidelined with concussion-like symptoms following his qualifying wreck at Pocono Raceway in July.

While that opened up a playoff spot for Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, the highest finishing non-winner in the regular season standings, the #45 team still made it into the owner playoffs because Busch’s May win at Kansas Speedway was tied to the team, not specifically to Busch.

As a result, Blaney’s #12 team did not make it into the owner playoffs and was instead locked into a 10-week battle for 17th place in the standings.

With Busch out, 23XI Racing made the decision to move Bubba Wallace to the #45 Toyota for the playoffs in an attempt to bolster its chances at winning the owner title. Wallace himself had already been eliminated from championship contention, finishing the regular season in 20th place in the point standings without a win.

Ty Gibbs, who had been Busch’s replacement behind the wheel of the #45 Toyota, was moved to Wallace’s #23 Toyota for the postseason.

Wallace locked the #45 team into the round of 12 with a round of 16 victory at Kansas Speedway, but he was unable to do enough to get the #45 team through the round of 12 and into the round of 8.

Because Blaney himself moved on to the round of 8 (and because his #12 team isn’t in contention), there is still one spot in the round of 8 of the owner playoffs which belongs to a team whose driver has already been eliminated.

In the round of 16 and the round of 12, that spot had, of course, belonged to the #45 team. It now belongs to the #5 Hendrick Motorsports team.

Kyle Larson, the driver of the #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, finished the round of 12 as the first driver below the round of 8 cut line.

But with Blaney ahead of him, the fact that the #12 team was not occupying a spot ahead of the #5 team in the owner standings meant that the #5 team was the eighth and final team to advance in the owner playoffs, not the first team below the cut line.

The other seven drivers in the round of 8 are Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and William Byron, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, Team Penske’s Joey Logano, Trackhouse Racing Team’s Ross Chastain, and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe.

All seven of their teams — the #9 team, the #24 team, the #20 team, the #11 team, the #22 team, the #1 team, and the #14 team, respectively — are also in the round of 8 of the owner playoffs.

The round of 8 is scheduled to get underway with the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this Sunday, October 16. This race is set to be broadcast live on NBC beginning at 2:30 p.m. ET. Be sure to start a free trial of FuboTV now!