After 12 years of the old knockout style playoff format, NASCAR finally made long-awaited changes over the offseason, most notably by removing the "win and in" element of the postseason, which is once again officially referred to as the "Chase" for the first time since 2013.
Now the 16 playoff drivers are simply set to be the 16 drivers who finish the 26-race regular season in the top 16 in the point standings.
So naturally there's no difference this year. Go figure, right?
NASCAR Cup winners (minus Corey Heim) might all qualify for the playoffs
As of right now, all nine full-time drivers who have won a race this season are in the top 16 in the point standings. And yes, they'd all still be in the top 16 even if NASCAR hadn't boosted the value of wins from 40 to 55 points over the offseason to compensate for the removal of the automatic playoff berth that used to come with a trip to victory lane.
Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen is the lowest winner inside the top 16, and he's 15th, 57 points above the cut line. Even under the old scoring system, he'd still be 16th, 27 points up.
The only winner not in the provisional playoff picture is Corey Heim, but that would've been true under the old format also. He is not a full-time Cup driver and is competing for Craftsman Truck Series points.
Still, he's seventh in average points per Cup Series start. And if he were actually seventh in the standings as a full-time driver, yes, all 10 winners would still be in the top 16.
Funny how that works.
Sure, there are four races remaining on the regular season schedule, including the traditionally unpredictable Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway to close it out, and the race at Richmond Raceway has been won by Austin Dillon in each of the past two years, despite the fact that the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing has been a non-factor almost everywhere else.
So there's no guarantee that any of this will remain true by the time late August rolls around, but it is sort of ironic that, after all the hype over the changes to the postseason, the same 16 drivers might qualify anyway.
Fitting, isn't it?
Of course, the removal of "win and in" wasn't the only change made to the playoffs for 2026. There is now set to be just a single 10-race postseason, rather than three rounds with three races each to lead into a four-driver, winner-take-all "Championship 4" season finale. And playoff seeding is now based strictly on the regular season standings, with no more "playoff points" for race wins or stage wins.
The playoffs are scheduled to begin on Sunday, September 6 at Darlington Raceway.
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