Shane van Gisbergen exposed NASCAR's real dilemma, and it's not the playoff format

At the start of Sunday's Viva Mexico 250 NASCAR Cup Series at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Shane van Gisbergen sat 33rd in the Cup Series point standings. After taking the victory by a dominant margin of 16.6 seconds, he is still only 30th, yet he is all but guaranteed to finish no worse than 16th.

It's one of the most controversial aspects of NASCAR's playoff format: "win and you're in", barring more than 16 winners during the 26 regular season races.

The New Zealand native was brought to full-time Cup Series competition for this precise reason, knowing he would have a leg up on the field on the road courses, and he and Trackhouse Racing have now successfully exploited the format, much to the chagrin of many fans.

But let's spare the hand-wringing. All "SVG" is really doing here is covering up for another of the playoffs' flaws: there are simply too many drivers in the postseason field.

The driver van Gisbergen knocks out of the playoffs wasn't going to compete for a title anyway.

Let's be real here: whoever van Gisbergen's playoff berth comes at the expense of will be a driver who didn't deserve to be there to begin with.

Let's take a look at the first three drivers outside the field following Mexico City. They are Ryan Preece, Michael McDowell, and A.J. Allmendinger.

None of those drivers would have gotten very far in the playoffs regardless, and even if they did, they're not having seasons remotely worthy of contending for a championship.

In a way, it's almost more optimal to have a driver like van Gisbergen in their place, because he'll likely be an easier "early out" as the field whittles itself down to the best of the best.

Only extremely occasionally throughout the history of NASCAR's "win and in" playoff format are championship-level drivers left out of the field due to an abundance of winners from outside the top 16 in points.

In fact, perhaps the only truly egregious example is Martin Truex Jr. in 2022. Truex was fourth in the regular season standings, but year one of the Next Gen era was a major outlier of a season when it comes to parity among winners. Had Kurt Busch not gotten injured, Ryan Blaney would have actually missed out from third as well.

All in all, the Cup Series currently has a dilemma, and it's not "win and in". It's the fact that there are more playoff spots than there are playoff-worthy drivers. The dozen or so who truly belong are going to make it in regardless. As for the final few, it hurts no one when a driver such as van Gisbergen wins his way in, and ultimately meets the same likely first round fate that some 15th place mediocrity would have met anyway.