After Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell and Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron got past Richard Childress Racing's Kyle Busch in the closing laps of Sunday's EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (COTA), it looked like the only thing that would stop one of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season's two winners from winning again was a collision between the two.
That collision never happened, and it was Bell who crossed the finish line in first place, denying 2024 COTA winner Byron another case of back-to-back victories after he opened up the 2025 season with his second Daytona 500 win in a row.
Bell, however, did go back-to-back in his own right, as he also won last Sunday's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. And because he has now won twice, we can officially say that he is locked into the playoffs, just three races into the 26-race regular season.
Christopher Bell locks into NASCAR playoffs at COTA, not Atlanta
Why Bell's Atlanta win didn't officially lock him in is because of the fact that there can technically be more than 16 winners during the regular season. The 16 playoff spots officially go to the regular season champion, whether he is a winner or not, and the 15 drivers who rank next highest in wins.
If there are more winners than available postseason spots, the tiebreaker among the single-race winners to determine who is in and who is out becomes points.
So this early in the season, the only way to lock into the playoffs is by winning twice, as there can be no more than 13 multi-race winners during the regular season.
Having said that, we're pretty confident in saying that Byron is also in, and for three main reasons.
Number one, we have never seen more than 16 regular season race winners since this format was introduced in 2014; there were exactly 16 in 2022, though the fact that there were 19 total winners that year indicates that it is technically possible.
Number two, the three races contested so far this year were largely "wild card" races, with two superspeedway events and a road course race.
The fact that those three races were all won by playoff regulars effectively eliminated three of the season's top possibilities for a "bid stealer" to swipe a playoff spot with an upset victory. That further reduces the chances of having more than 16 winners.
And possibly most importantly, number three, Byron is a perennial contender who has been to back-to-back Championship 4s. Even if he were to not win during the entire rest of the season and there were to be more than 16 winners, it's hard to imagine that he would be the lowest of the single-race winners in points.
Still, when it comes to the math, Bell is the only driver officially locked into the playoffs, and the driver of the No. 20 Toyota is the earliest driver to mathematically clinch a spot since 2018.
No driver had locked himself into the playoffs just three races into a season since Kevin Harvick won two of the first three (and then ultimately three of the first four) races of the 2018 season.
Race number four on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Shriners Children's 500, which is scheduled to take place at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, March 9. Funnily enough, this race was won by Byron in 2023 and Bell in 2024. Fox Sports 1 is set to provide live coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET, so start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!