Here's what the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series 'Chase' would have looked like

After 12 years of the four-round, 10-race knockout Championship 4 playoff system, it was time to move on. And to the surprise of quite a few fans, NASCAR not only made the decision to move on, but to move back.

The Chase format, or about as close as you can get to it, is set to return for the foreseeable future, beginning with the upcoming 2026 season.

Full details on the new format can be found here, but to keep things simple, which this format thankfully does, here's a brief breakdown: wins are worth 15 more points than they were, points and points alone set the Chase/playoff field, and bonus points are awarded at the start of the Chase based on regular season points position.

The highest score after the 10-race postseason wins the championship.

It really is that simple.

So of course, we just had to go back through the 2025 season and see who would have been in the Chase field, had the 2026 format been implemented a year ago. And what we got was somewhat surprising.

Of course, drivers and teams would have approached things differently had a different format been in place. That's true regardless of the format, and like we said even during the much-maligned Championship 4 years, everybody does indeed still play by the same rules.

We went back through and added 15 points for each regular season win and reset the standings after the 26th race.

We also went back and added points for the Chase, but that's a subject for a whole other article. For what it's worth, the championship battle would have come down to six drivers, rather than just four, in the season finale.

But before we get to that, here's a look at what the pre-Chase point standings would have looked like in 2025.

2025 NASCAR Cup Series Chase field

NOTE: Ties were broken by awarding the tiebreaker to the driver with more regular season wins, as NASCAR has done in the past. Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney were tied, as were Bubba Wallace and Chris Buescher.

The big surprise is the fact that Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen, who had literally become the poster child for why "win and in" should be abolished, would have gotten into the playoffs even with the new format. He finished the regular season 25th in points, but the 60 extra points he would have scored with his four victories surprisingly would have vaulted him all the way up to 16th.

And yes, that's actually a good thing, because it means that winning does indeed still matter, and it still matters a lot, especially since the point values for all of the other finishing positions remained the same.

RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece would have been in the Chase, even after failing to qualify for the playoffs, while Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry and Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon, who only qualified for the playoffs because they both won a race, would have been left on the outside looking in.

They wouldn't have been relatively close to getting in either, with Berry in 20th place and Dillon in 25th.

Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs, who actually finished the 2025 regular season 16th in points (but didn't qualify for the playoffs anyway), still would have missed out. He scored 543 regular season points, while van Gisbergen scored 485, so van Gisbergen's bonus 60 under the 2026 format would have boosted him up to 545.

The Daytona 500 is scheduled to get the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season underway on Sunday, February 15, and for the first time in 13 years, the winner is not set to punch a ticket to the playoffs 25 races in advance. Fox is set to provide live coverage from Daytona International Speedway starting at 2:30 p.m. ET.