Over the past few NASCAR Cup Series races weekends, there were no changes as far as who the 16 drivers inside the provisional playoff picture were. However, that changed at Kansas Speedway, and it changed in a way pretty much everybody anticipated it to.
Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen has been one of the pleasant surprises to start the season. He finished 25th in the regular season standings as a rookie in 2025, despite winning four races, and that result ultimately boiled down to his struggles on oval races.
SVG won a total of five races a year ago, and NASCAR removed three of them from the 2026 schedule, including two from the regular season calendar. In other words, he was going to need to step up in a big way on ovals to have a shot to get back to the postseason with the "win and in" format now being a thing of the past.
Yet heading into Sunday's AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway, van Gisbergen had been in the top 16 for pretty much the entire season.
Everyone watching could see that was not sustainable.
He didn't just drop below the cut line at Kansas; he plummeted below it. He started the afternoon one point above Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe for the 16th and final playoff spot. Now he's 32 points behind former teammate Daniel Suarez, who ironically seems to have fallen upward into a more competitive Spire Motorsports ride by being dropped by the Justin Marks-owned team.
SVG's best career oval finish in a non-superspeedway race is still only 10th place, and he hasn't scored a top 10 finish since his runner-up finish in the road course race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in early March. Three of his past five oval starts have produced finishes of 34th or worse.
Yes, he's marginally better than he was on ovals as a rookie. But that isn't saying a whole lot, and it's made worse by the fact that Trackhouse Racing have taken a massive step back this year as a whole.
Ross Chastain hasn't finished inside the top 15 in a non-superspeedway race all year, and the wildly hyped rookie Connor Zilisch is 33rd in the standings with two only top 25 finishes.
Give credit to SVG for being in the top 16 for as long as he was, and sure, don't rule out him getting back into it at some point with three upcoming road and street course races on the regular season schedule, especially after NASCAR boosted the value of wins from 40 to 55 this year.
But don't overlook the 13 oval races still remaining on the regular season calendar either.
At this rate, it would be a massive upset if any of the team's three drivers manage to qualify for the postseason.
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