Due to their several victories this season, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, William Byron, and Christopher Bell are four of the ten drivers who are provisionally locked into the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs.
Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, colleagues at Hendrick Motorsports, are deadlocked atop the Cup Series standings with eight races left in the regular season. The regular-season points leader will receive fifteen playoff points following the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
In 2024, Elliott, Daniel Suárez, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric, and reigning champion Ryan Blaney are all winners. It’s preferable to have a healthy points cushion to the provisional elimination line, like Ross Chastain and Martin Truex Jr. do, since they sit with 95% or greater odds of entering the 16-driver field, given that there have already been four new winners this year compared to 2023.
THE LAST 4 IN
Ty Gibbs’s probability increased somewhat as he moved back up to the 90% threshold, despite his lackluster performances over the past month. His most recent top-10 finish came in the Coca-Cola 600 in May.
Chris Buescher’s playoff probability increased the most, rising from less than 70% prior to New Hampshire to over 85% as he entered “Music City.” Although Buescher finished 18th in Nashville last year, he has two top five finishes in the last three races.
Alex Bowman was arguably the greatest loser of the weekend. Bowman’s playoff chances were severely damaged by an engine failure at New Hampshire, where he lost nearly 16 points before Nashville, despite having previously finished in the top 10 ten times in 2024. Bowman’s summer slump from the previous season, when he only managed two top 10 finishes between April and August, may be a contributing cause.
When Joey Logano locked up on a restart in the last stage and crashed into Elliott, it appeared as though he was headed for a huge points day or even a victory on Sunday in New Hampshire. Nonetheless, Logano was able to pass Bubba Wallace by 13 points and move into the provisional 16th and final playoff berth by scoring a sizable portion of stage points.
FIRST FOUR OUT
It’s difficult to have a race in New Hampshire as awful as Kyle Busch’s. Busch and company’s terrible day came to an end when the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet cautiously smacked the wall on the wet weather tires, following two earlier mishaps. Busch is already 45 points behind the 16-driver playoff field, and the team’s performance doesn’t seem to be improving.
The same could be said for Bubba Wallace, who was just enjoying a passable day at Loudon when Noah Gragson destroyed him in a multicar crash late on Sunday. Wallace now has a likelihood just over 22%, and he needs to make a strong run in Nashville to at least partially plateau that probability.
Once again, Josh Berry and Michael McDowell complete the playoff picture. Berry almost missed out on victory on Sunday, finishing in third place, despite being in the running for a second straight triumph. Before an aggressive restart in the final laps spun him and Ryan Blaney, McDowell was also in the mix at Loudon.
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