NASCAR: The Championship 4 team whose driver is eliminated

Only three of the teams still eligible to win the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series owner championship have drivers who can win the title.

The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 is set, with Team Penske’s Joey Logano, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, Trackhouse Racing Team’s Ross Chastain, and Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott set to compete for this year’s title in Sunday afternoon’s race at Phoenix Raceway.

Logano qualified for the Championship 4 by winning the round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Bell qualified by winning the round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway, and both Chastain and Elliott qualified on points.

However, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson is also competing for a championship this Sunday afternoon, despite the fact that he has been eliminated from title contention for the last several weeks.

How is this possible?

It all started just before the playoffs began, when 23XI Racing’s Kurt Busch, who had qualified for the playoffs by winning at Kansas Speedway in May, withdrew his name from postseason competition. He knew he wouldn’t be ready to return as he continued to recover from the head injury he suffered as a result of a single-car qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway in July.

That freed up a playoff spot which ultimately went to Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, who finished the regular season as the highest ranking non-winner in the standings.

However, Busch’s #45 team was still locked into the owner playoffs, as the Kansas Speedway win remained tied to the team, not specifically to Busch. As a result, Blaney’s #12 team didn’t get into the owner playoffs, despite the fact that Blaney got into the driver playoffs.

Bubba Wallace, the full-time driver of 23XI Racing’s #23 Toyota who didn’t qualify for the playoffs himself, shifted over to the #45 Toyota to try to bolster the #45 team’s owner championship chances. The #45 team advanced to the round of 12 after Wallace won the round of 16 race at Kansas Speedway.

Blaney also advanced to the round of 12, so both the round of 16 and the round of 12 featured both a team whose driver had already been eliminated and a driver whose team had already been eliminated.

The #45 team was eliminated in the round of 12, but because Blaney moved on to the round of 8, this meant that the round of 8 still featured both a team whose driver had already been eliminated and a driver whose team had already been eliminated — remember, the #12 team was never in the owner playoffs.

This time, the team whose driver had already been eliminated was the #5 team of Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson. Larson himself was the first driver below the cut line to end the round of 12, but the #5 team was the final team above it.

Larson won the middle race of the three-race semifinal round at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and while this win did not lock him into the Championship 4 since he had already been eliminated, it did lock the #5 team into the Championship 4 of the owner playoffs.

So while Larson has already been eliminated, he is effectively one of five drivers competing for a title in Sunday afternoon’s 312-lap race around the four-turn, 1.022-mile (1.645-kilometer) Avondale, Arizona oval.

The other three teams in contention for the owner championship are Logano’s #22 team, Bell’s #20 team, and Chastain’s #1 team. Elliott’s #9 team did not qualify, despite the fact that Elliott himself is still in the running.

Tune in to NBC at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, November 6 for the live broadcast of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 from Phoenix Raceway. If you haven’t yet started a free trial of FuboTV, don’t miss your chance to do so!