Despite his 25th place finish in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season standings, Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen would have actually qualified for the playoffs under the new 2026 format, even with no more "win and in".
The 15 bonus points NASCAR now awards to drivers for winning races would have taken van Gisbergen up to 16th in the standings, as he won four regular season races and therefore would have collected 60 more points than he actually scored.
Still, with three of the five venues where he won a year ago no longer on the calendar for 2026, it was hard to envision a scenario where the driver of the No. 97 Chevrolet qualified for this year's playoffs.
Yet 12 races into the 26-race regular season, with two road course races down and two to go, he finds himself sitting in the 16th and final provisional playoff spot, six points to the good.
However, it remains challenging to envision him sustaining that success and qualifying for this year's playoffs, because his progress on ovals, of which there are still 12 remaining between now and late August, has not been nearly substantial enough to keep him above the cut line.
He's 22nd in oval points, which is admittedly an improvement from 2025, but that's still 71 points outside of the top 16 in that category.
NASCAR format change could pay off, even if SVG gets in
Van Gisbergen, who placed second in the season's first road course race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in early March, earned his first win of the 2026 season in the series' most recent points races at Watkins Glen International.
And while he had to charge forward on new tires from nearly 30 seconds out of the lead to overtake Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs for the victory late, it truly felt inevitable the entire way.
Through the season's first 11 races, all six different winners this season were inside the top seven in the point standings. Even without the new 15-point bonus, nobody would have been lower than eighth.
Yet van Gisbergen, race winner number seven in event number 12, looks set to hover around that 15th to 20th range for the rest of the regular season, and he could very well be the first driver to fall victim to the removal of "win and in".
Regardless of how many wins a driver earns during the regular season, the 16 playoff spots are set to go to the 16 drivers who rank from No. 1 to No. 16 in total points earned.
Period.
Of course, even if he does end up outside of the top 16, SVG may not be the only driver who misses the playoffs because of the format change. In 2025 alone, there were two drivers, Wood Brothers Racing's Josh Berry and Richard Childress Racing's Austin Dillon, whose wins would not have been nearly enough to get them in, under the updated format.
But the Go Bowling at the Glen marked the first example of what could be true vindication of the format that fans had been longing for, proof that the removal of "win and in" works.
And even if SVG does make it in, the fierce points battle he still must fight serves as indisputable proof of the long-term advantage of drivers no longer having the ability to punch their playoff tickets for September in the first half of May (or even up to three months earlier).
Following this past weekend's All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway, the next points race on the schedule is the Coca-Cola 600, which is set to be shown live on Amazon Prime Video from Charlotte Motor Speedway starting at 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 24.
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