The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series championship appears to be firmly in the hands of Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson after his victory in Sunday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, but there are plenty of other competitive battles in the point standings to watch over the course of the season's final two races at Martinsville Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway.
One of them might be to see who can avoid finishing last in the 16-driver playoff field.
Through the first seven races of the postseason, three drivers had spent time in the 16th position in the championship standings. RFK Racing's Ryan Preece opened up the playoffs as the lowest-seeded driver and thus the only one without any pre-postseason bonus points, but Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron fell to last after a DNF in the opener at Darlington Raceway.
Spire Motorsports' Daniel Suarez fell to last after a DNF in the following weekend's race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, and he remained there after the races at Bristol Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway.
But Preece fell back to last at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with a 28th place finish, and he remained there after the races at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway.
New driver drops to last in NASCAR playoff standings
Now it's teammate Chris Buescher who is last after Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway.
RFK Racing shocked the field early on when they opted to save far less fuel than the rest of the pack, with the trio of Preece, Buescher, and team owner Brad Keselowski pulling away from everybody else by over 40 seconds at one point.
But their strong results were limited to stage one, with Buescher winning ahead of Preece in second and Keselowski in third. Busecher did finish sixth in the second stage, but he was eventually wrecked out of the race and scored 32nd. Keselowski, who is not a playoff driver, finished 24th, while Preece finished 13th.
Preece's 13th place finish was enough to move him above Buescher in the standings. He sits six points ahead of his teammate with two races left on the 2026 schedule.
Suarez is not too far ahead of either of them, sitting nine points ahead of Preece and 15 ahead of Buescher. Byron, teammate Chase Elliott, and 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace are all within 41 points of last place as well, yet all of them can still mathematically ascend to as high as second.
Sunday's Xfinity 500 is set to be broadcast live on NBC from Martinsville Speedway starting at 2:00 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV today and don't miss any of the action from the penultimate race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season!
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