There are still five races remaining on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, but the annual playoff criticism, which has existed since the modern format was introduced back in 2014, has already started.
And after Joey Logano won last year's championship following a 15th place finish in the regular season standings, that criticism is higher than it's ever been. But NASCAR has not ruled out making changes for the 2026 season, and perhaps the easiest (and most non-radical) solution is right in front of their faces.
NASCAR starts the playoffs by resetting each driver's point total to 2,000, plus playoff points. Wins are worth five playoff points each, and stage wins are worth one each. Additional playoff points are awarded on a 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale for the top 10 finishers in the regular season standings (provided they are among the 16 playoff qualifiers).
Let's look at Shane van Gisbergen for a second.
He has won three races this year, all on road or street courses, and racked up a total of 17 playoff points, despite the fact that he is 26th in the point standings and has been one of the series' worst full-time drivers on the ovals on an oval-dominated calendar.
He is third in playoff points, and even with the playoff reset, he would be the No. 6 seed. With a second-round road course race at Charlotte, he has a legitimate path to the Championship 4 by simply not running horribly for three races in a row in round one.
Therein lies the problem.
Wins need to matter. But the fact that consistency doesn't matter, pretty much at all, is what a lot of NASCAR fans are upset about.
Take Logano's championship run. Even with three playoff wins, he didn't finish in the top 10 in total points scored. Why? Because in the playoffs, he clinched his spot in the next round twice with round-opening wins. He was effectively competing for absolutely nothing in four of the nine pre-championship races. In those races, his average finish was worse than 20th.
How is that a championship-worthy run?
Fortunately for NASCAR, they can keep the Game 7 moment they so desire with the Championship 4. They can keep their three-race knockout playoff rounds.
And they can even keep the "win and in" element of the regular season. Though criticized, it actually makes sense, seeing as how the so-called "more deserving" drivers who end up missing the playoffs on points aren't statistically contenders. Again, winning should matter.
But they can do it all in a way that rewards consistency the same way they reward winning.
Instead of awarding bonus playoff points to the top 10 finishers in regular season points on the aforementioned 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale, NASCAR can up those tallies. Significantly.
Let's go back to van Gisbergen. As the lowest driver in the regular season point standings among the 16 playoff drivers, he would score five additionally playoff points. The next lowest driver would score 10, and so on, using five-point gains all the way up to the regular season champion, who would score 80.
Five playoff points would still be paid out for race wins. But because of the added incentives for consistency and points, van Gisbergen would not be nearly as high of a seed as he is under the current format. With 22 playoff points, he would be the No. 14 seed, rather than the No. 6 seed, and he would enter the round of 16 below the cut line.
Using the current points situation, Kyle Larson would be leading the way with 93, 70 points above the cut line, ahead of Denny Hamlin with 89, William Byron with 87, and Chase Elliott with 86.
Additionally, NASCAR can base playoff advancements strictly on points from race results, excluding stage points like they already do for the Championship 4.
While the "win and in" element would still exist in the regular season, the "win and advance" element of the playoffs would be gone, again emphasizing the need for consistency.
There would be no more "win and relax during our ensuing two-week bye". Perhaps NASCAR could even make wins worth 50, rather than 40, during the playoffs, so that winning is still the number one goal, without making it the be-all and end-all.
After each round, points would still be reset, again emphasizing the importance of regular season consistency. Even if Kyle Larson, for instance, has a rough race or two in the opening round, he would probably be safe to advance to the round of 12, due to that cushion he had built up over 26 races. And yes, he would start the next round with those bonus 93 points.
The NASCAR In-Season Challenge has completely exposed just how volatile single-race rounds can be. Ty Dillon being in the championship round is Exhibit A. And make no mistake about it; three races is also an incredibly small sample size.
But 26 isn't.
Yes, this theoretically makes it more difficult for drivers who enter each round below the cut line to advance. For example, you're probably not going to see van Gisbergen climb ahead of Larson in any given round.
But like NASCAR has now, there would still be no more than a handful of points between any two drivers following post-round points resets, that could still set up some incredibly tight battles around the cut line, especially if one of the top contenders falters (or if a lower-seeded driver such as van Gisbergen pulls off another win).
We hear so much about "upset" wins in the Cup Series. This format would make it so that any "upsets" would truly be upsets. Drivers would have to be good for more than one single weekend to advance, and pulling off an "upset" superspeedway win in the round of 8 at Talladega Superspeedway, for instance, would no longer punch one's ticket to the Championship 4.
The four Championship 4 drivers would indeed be the drivers who have had the four best seasons, regular season and playoffs, up to that point, not the top one or two drivers plus a couple others who pulled off timely "upsets" to advance.
If you make it to the Championship 4 as a lower seed, you will have earned it by being consistently good at a variety of tracks.
Not because you won a race and took a couple of meaningless weeks off.