Kyle Larson did what Kyle Larson does on Sunday afternoon at Kansas Speedway, winning two stages and the AdventHealth 400 itself from pole position, with the fastest lap to boot, to take the lead of the NASCAR Cup Series point standings.
Larson is now tied for the series lead in victories with three, and with eight stage wins, five more than any other driver, he also leads in playoff points with 23; nobody else has more than 16.
And factoring in the provisional playoff picture, and thus the 15 playoff points he would score by being the regular season champion, he would have 38 playoff points; nobody else would have more than 24.
Larson had already locked himself into the playoffs since he had won twice, first at Homestead-Miami Speedway and then at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season champion and the 15 drivers who rank next highest in wins. Since there can be no more than 13 multi-race winners, the multi-race winners are all locked in.
Winning once doesn't necessarily lock a driver into the playoffs, since there can be more than 16 regular season race winners, but even if Larson hadn't entered Kansas with multiple wins, he'd have multiple wins now.
And quite frankly, even if Kansas had marked his first win of the year, he still wouldn't exactly be at risk of missing the playoffs if there are more than 16 winners, since he is the points leader.
But one driver could be, and that driver was the real big winner of Sunday's AdventHealth 400.
Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry earned his first career Cup Series win mid-March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and he is the lowest of the seven winners (specifically the four single-race winners) in the point standings.
Kansas, however, marked a step in the right direction for the driver of the No. 21 Ford. His sixth place finish was his best since his win; he posted an average finish of only 25.83 in the six races between his victory and Sunday's race. During that six-race stretch, he did not finish higher than 12th.
And Larson's win was a particularly welcome sight for Berry, as it eliminated one of the remaining opportunities for a new winner to emerge. As a result, there is a slightly lower chance of the regular season concluding with more than 16 winners.
There have been seven winners in 12 of the 26 races, and considering how many "regulars" have already found victory lane, it's not super likely that there will end up being more winners than playoff spots.
Because of where Berry is in the point standings (17th place), he is the one winner who really benefits from a lower winner total, since if there do end up being more than 16 winners, he could find himself in a sketchy situation.
In the event that there are more than 16 winners, tie tiebreaker to determine which single-race winners get in and which don't becomes points.
The other single-race winners are Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron and Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Austin Cindric, and they find themselves in second, ninth, and 14th place, respectively; Cindric would be in ninth ahead of Logano in 10th if not for a 50-point penalty he was issued earlier in the season.
The next race on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is not a points race, so no playoff spots can be clinched in it. That race, the All-Star Race, is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 from North Wilkesboro Speedway beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 18. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!
The next points race on the schedule is the Coca-Cola 600, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday May 25. This race is set to kick off Amazon Prime Video's first-ever five-race portion of the Cup Series broadcast schedule, with live coverage set to begin at 6:00 p.m. ET. It is also set to begin a 24-week stretch with no off-weekends between points races.