In race number six on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule on Sunday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson secured his first win of the year and second at the track since 2022.
Larson's 30th career Cup Series win vaulted the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet up to second place in the point standings behind teammate William Byron, who is one of the other three drivers to find victory lane through the season's first six races.
Byron won the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell reeled off three straight wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Circuit of the Americas (COTA), and Phoenix Raceway, and Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry earned the first win of his career at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
With 20 races remaining on the 26-race regular season schedule, Bell is technically the only driver locked into the playoffs.
While Larson, for all intents and purposes, is "locked in", the specifics of the playoff format theoretically mean that his playoff berth is not a mathematical guarantee.
The 16 playoff spots go to the regular season champion, and then the 15 drivers who rank next highest in wins. If there are more winners than playoff spots, the tiebreaker among single-race winners to see who gets in and who doesn't becomes points. If there are not enough winners to fill the playoff spots, the tiebreaker simply because points among non-winners.
With 26 regular season races, there can be no more than 13 multi-race winners. But there can still technically be up to 24 total (23 single-race) winners before the playoffs start, so Larson's Homestead-Miami victory technically isn't the clincher.
Nobody is doubting the fact that Larson is in; even if he doesn't win again, it's highly unlikely that there will be more than 16 winners, and it's even more unlikely that, even if there are, he will be the lowest on points, or among the lowest, within the group.
But as is always the case whenever a driver secures his first win of a season, this is another great opportunity to remind fans just how the playoff format works.
If there are indeed more than 16 playoff eligible drivers by the time the regular season ends, which is a very real possibility considering the parity of the Next Gen era, the postseason would remain capped at 16 drivers, and not all winners would qualify.
The seventh race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season is the Cook Out 400, which is scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 30. Fox Sports 1 is set to provide live coverage from Martinsville Speedway beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and be sure to catch all of the action!