Phoenix Raceway is scheduled to host the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 this weekend, and for the 12th year in a row, NASCAR's playoff format has ensured that there are four drivers still eligible for the championship heading into the season finale.
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, as well as Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson, are the four drivers who have a chance to emerge as the 2025 Cup Series champion this Sunday afternoon after the 312-lap race around the four-turn, 1.022-mile (1.645-kilometer) Avondale, Arizona oval.
But what the season finale also means is that we've reached that time of year where, after weeks and weeks of rehearsing, NASCAR fans have prepared their absolute best "illegitimate champion" and "playoffs suck" rants to share on social media, as they long for the days of a season-long championship, days which have not existed since before 2004.
So what would the Cup Series point standings look like heading into the season finale if points from each of the season's first 35 races were simply added up, with no playoffs and thus no playoff point resets at the start of each round of the postseason?
If we use the modern points structure, there would still be three drivers in contention for the 2025 championship. Here's how the standings would look.
NASCAR Cup Series point standings without playoffs
1 - William Byron - 1159 (0)
2 - Kyle Larson - 1148 (-11)
3 - Christopher Bell - 1134 (-25)
4 - Ryan Blaney - 1097 (-62)
5 - Chase Elliott - 1070 (-89)
6 - Chase Briscoe - 1064 (-95)
7 - Denny Hamlin - 1056 (-103)
8 - Tyler Reddick - 1028 (-131)
9 - Joey Logano - 930 (-229)
10 - Bubba Wallace - 891 (-268)
11 - Ross Chastain - 871 (-288)
12 - Chris Buescher - 862 (-297)
13 - Alex Bowman - 852 (-307)
14 - Ryan Preece - 833 (-326)
15 - Ty Gibbs - 767 (-392)
16 - Brad Keselowski - 727 (-432)
17 - Michael McDowell - 705 (-454)
17 - Kyle Busch - 705 (-454)
19 - Austin Cindric - 687 (-472)
20 - Carson Hocevar - 686 (-473)
21 - Shane van Gisbergen - 661 (-498)
22 - John Hunter Nemechek - 658 (-501)
23 - A.J. Allmendinger - 648 (-511)
24 - Erik Jones - 644 (-515)
25 - Josh Berry - 618 (-541)
26 - Zane Smith - 607 (-552)
27 - Austin Dillon - 603 (-556)
28 - Todd Gilliland - 601 (-558)
29 - Daniel Suarez - 593 (-566)
30 - Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - 542 (-617)
31 - Justin Haley - 536 (-623)
32 - Ty Dillon - 475 (-684)
33 - Cole Custer - 474 (-685)
34 - Noah Gragson - 430 (-729)
35 - Riley Herbst - 385 (-774)
36 - Cody Ware - 226 (-933)
Of course, we all know, even though some of us won't admit, that every single driver in the field would approach every single race differently if the modern playoff format was something other than what it is, meaning that this is not how the actually standings would look if the current points were allotted over the course of a 36-race season like they were in the pre-playoff era.
And that's another thing; these point tallies factor in stage results and stage points as well, which were only introduced in 2017 – three years after the modern knockout playoff format was introduced and 13 years after the playoff era began. So they're not even purely based on race results, which is one of the reasons why a 36-race format doesn't fit the current points structure.
But I digress. These are indeed what the point standings would look like if we simply tally each driver's point total from each of the season's first 35 races. The championship battle would be down to Byron, Larson, and Bell. Instead, Bell is eliminated, and Briscoe and Hamlin are both set to compete for a championship with Byron and Larson.
Notably, four of the top 16 drivers didn't actually qualify for the playoffs, with Chris Buescher leading that group in 12th place.
NBC is set to provide live coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, and that coverage is scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, November 2. If you have not yet started a free trial of FuboTV, do so today and don't miss any of the action from Phoenix Raceway!