When NASCAR got rid of the "win and in", knockout-style playoff format ahead of the 2026 season, one driver many pointed to as a driver who would be hurt most was Shane van Gisbergen.
The Trackhouse Racing driver was 25th in the 2025 regular season standings but qualified for the playoffs after winning four of the five races on road and street courses.
However, under the 2026 scoring system, which includes a bonus 15 points for race winners to make up for the fact that points and points alone would determine the entire 16-driver "Chase" postseason field, SVG actually would have qualified for the 2025 playoffs with his 60 extra points.
In 2026, he made significant progress on ovals all around. Despite the fact that there was one less road course race on the regular season schedule, and the fact that he only won two of the four non-oval events (Watkins Glen, Sonoma) and actually had a DNF in one of the two (Coronado) he didn't win, his average finish over the 26 regular season races improved by 2.6 positions.
He clearly had a lot more than, as we admittedly incorrectly put it a few months ago, a "snowball's chance in Haiti" to qualify for the postseason.
SVG drops out of the playoffs at the last possible second
Entering the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday night, van Gisbergen occupied the 16th and final spot in the provisional playoff field, 31 points above the cut line.
It marked his eighth straight race weekend in the top 16, and he had been as many as 57 points above the cutoff during that stretch. He was ahead of the cut line after 20 of the first 25 races on the regular season calendar.
He even opened up the Coke Zero Sugar 400 with a stage one win to bolster his lead over RFK Racing's Ryan Preece for that final spot.
But a 28th place finish, coupled with Preece's first career victory, resulted in SVG dropping out of the postseason altogether. He came up 17 points shy of Preece for that spot, although it would have been more if not for Preece's 25-point penalty from back in May.
SVG ultimately finished the regular season as the only full-time race winner who failed to qualify for the postseason, meaning the removal of "win and in" kept him and only him out of the playoffs. He is instead now locked into a 10-week battle for 17th in the point standings. He currently holds the 17th spot by 62 points over RFK Racing's Brad Keselowski.
The postseason is scheduled to get underway this Sunday, September 6 with the Cook Out Southern 500, which is set to be shown live on USA Network from Darlington Raceway beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET.
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