For the 16th year in a row, the winner of the NASCAR Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500 did not win race number two on the schedule.
Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron was taken out of contention at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a late wreck that sent the race to overtime, and then in overtime, it was Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell who prevailed, winning under caution.
Because there can technically be more than 16 winners during the 26-race regular season, neither Byron nor Bell is officially locked into this year's 16-driver postseason.
The 16 playoff spots officially go to the regular season champion, whether he is a race winner or not (and the current points leader, Team Penske's Ryan Blaney, is not), plus the 15 drivers who rank next highest in wins. So the only way to truly solidify a playoff berth this early in the year is by winning twice, since no more than 13 drivers can do that before the playoffs began.
But for all intents and purposes, Byron and Bell are both locked in.
Daytona and Atlanta are both superspeedway, so they open up the door for underdog winners which can effectively play the role of playoff "bid stealers", like we saw last August when Harrison Burton, the last place finisher in points, qualified for the playoffs with his Daytona win.
We almost saw it on Sunday as well, with Spire Motorsports' Carson Hocevar placing second behind Bell.
Byron and Bell, however, are playoff regulars who have combined for four Championship 4 appearances in the last three seasons. Byron hasn't missed the winner-take-all round since 2022, and Bell missed it last year for the first time since 2021.
So the two winners of the season's first two true "wild card" races are drivers who would likely be in the playoffs anyway. Now with those two races in the books, there is much less of a chance of there being more than 16 playoff eligible drivers by the time the regular season ends.
And even in the off chance (it's never happened in the first 11 years of the current playoff format) that there do still end up being more than 16 regular season race winners, the tiebreaker to determine which single-race winners are in and which single-race winners are out becomes points.
It's hard to imagine every single remaining winner finishing the season ahead of Bell on points. Even if there are 26 different winners, it's hard to imagine Bell not being in that top 16.
Will a third different winner emerge in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season's third race at Circuit of the Americas? William Byron is the reigning winner of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, which is set to be shown live on Fox beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET this Sunday, March 2. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action!