NASCAR: What’s at stake in the playoffs ahead of the Bristol Night Race

Four drivers will be eliminated from the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs on Saturday night.

The Bristol night race (7:30 p.m. ET, USA) is the third race of the 10-race playoffs and 12 drivers will move on to the second round after the race.

Advertisement

Barring chaos, Saturday night could be pretty straightforward too. Three drivers are guaranteed to advance to the second round and six others are in a very good position to move on.

Chaos at Bristol has been hard to come by recently, as well. Three of the last four races have had six or fewer cautions and this season’s spring race had just one caution flag outside of the mandatory two cautions for stage breaks. The final 235 laps of the April race were run caution-free.

Here’s what you need to know about the playoff standings heading into Bristol.

Advancing to the second round

1. Denny Hamlin (win at Gateway)

Advertisement

2. Chase Briscoe (win at Darlington)

3. Kyle Larson (2,103 points)

NASCAR’s win-and-in playoff format ensures that Hamlin and Briscoe are going to the second round no matter what happens on Saturday night. Hamlin won less than a week ago at Gateway and Briscoe won the playoff opener at Darlington.

Larson just simply needs to start Saturday night’s race and he’s in the second round since he has a 59-point advantage on 12th.

Pretty safe

4. Bubba Wallace (2,093)

5. Ryan Blaney (2,085)

6. William Byron (2,082)

7. Tyler Reddick (2,080)

8. Christopher Bell (2,075)

9. Chase Elliott (2,071)

All six of these drivers can feel comfortable about their chances of moving on. Wallace just needs to score seven points to advance to the second round, while Blaney needs 15. You can do the math for everyone else down to Elliott, who needs 29 points to advance no matter what happens to anyone else.

Advertisement

Wallace has finishes of sixth and eighth to start the playoffs, while Blaney rebounded from a spin off Larson’s bumper at Gateway to finish fourth.

In the second round right now

10. Joey Logano (2,064)

11. Ross Chastain (2,062)

12. Austin Cindric (2,054)

Barring a win by the drivers in 15th and 16th, these three are racing the two directly below them in the standings for the final three spots in the second round. And they have a nice head start.

Logano needs to buck a bad recent trend, however. He hasn’t finished in the top 20 at Bristol since the fall race in 2021. And he hasn’t had a top-10 finish at Bristol since he was third in the spring race in 2019.

Advertisement

Chastain has finished 10th and seventh in his last two Bristol starts. Cindric has never finished better than 13th.

Needs a really good run

13. Austin Dillon (2,043)

14. Shane van Gisbergen (2,039)

Dillon was 10th at Bristol in the spring. It was his fourth top-10 finish in 20 starts at the half-mile track. He probably needs to replicate that — or have a bad finish from one of the three drivers ahead of him — to get into the second round.

van Gisbergen entered the playoffs tied as the Cup Series wins leader with four victories. Yet he’s likely staring at an early playoff exit. He finished 38th after he was in a second-stage crash in the spring Bristol race.

Advertisement

Probably needs to win

15. Alex Bowman (2,019)

16. Josh Berry (2,009)

There are scenarios where both Bowman and Berry make it to the second round of the playoffs without winning. But they require a lot of things to go right and are unlikely to happen.

Simply put, the best way for either driver to make the second round is to win. Bowman hasn’t won all season and has finished 31st and 26 in the first two playoff races. Berry’s car bottomed out on the opening lap at Darlington before he spun and he crashed out at Gateway after contact from Chase Elliott.