The race to the NASCAR Chase is on: Who are the favorites?

Earlier in the weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, when asked about his championship chances under the new Chase for the Championship format, Chase Briscoe said he would need to start winning in bunches.

Why?

After running thousands of simulations, NASCAR stated that nearly 70 percent of eventual champions started the final 10 races from inside the top five. That is because the top-16 in the standings get reseeded and consolidated for dramatic purposed.

1st: 2,100
2nd: 2,075 (-25)
3rd: 2,065 (-35)
4th: 2,060 (-40)
5th: 2,055 (-45)
6th: 2,050 (-50)
7th: 2,045 (-55)
8th: 2,040 (-60)
9th: 2,035 (-65)
10th: 2,030 (-70)
11th: 2,025 (-75)
12th: 2,020 (-80)
13th: 2,015 (-85)
14th: 2,010 (-90)
15th: 2,005 (-95)
16th: 2,000 (-100)

Translation: There is a significant advantage to starting the final 10 races with a 25-point advantage. Starting from a 25-point deficit is doable. The same can be said for lessening odds through the top 5 but it really starts to be a challenge beyond that point.

Thus, what Briscoe said earlier this week from the 11 seed made a considerable amount of sense.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Briscoe said. “I think you’re going to have to go on quite a run, right? It’s going to have to be very similar to what Tony (Stewart) was able to do.”

This is a reference to the 2011 championship run, one in which ‘Smoke’ infamously said he did not even belong in the Chase because he was the No. 10 seed with no wins, but eventually won half of the playoff races and won the title through a tiebreaker with Carl Edwards.

The difference now is that wins count for far more points than they did in 2011.

“If you can win races, you can make up a lot of points really, really quickly,” Briscoe said. “So yeah, I think for us right now, there’s a very realistic … We don’t have to run anything crazy. We can get to seventh into points still, which at least puts you there.

“And you could still, if you win two or three of these next eight races, which is possible, you could find yourself maybe even in fifth to sixth in points. So yeah, I definitely think it’s possible. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to have to go win races. I think we’re more than capable of doing that.”

And just like that, Briscoe won on Sunday night and jumped from 11th to 8th as a result. It proved to be quite fortuitous based on his conversation with Motorsport.com on Friday.

“We still have a long way to go,” Briscoe said. “We have not been as consistent as (Denny Hamlin and (Tyler Reddick). But from a speed standpoint, I feel like we’ve been there with them. (Hamlin) has probably been a little bit quicker.

“So yeah, I think we still need a little bit more. The hard part is we’re just going to be playing from behind the whole playoffs — or the whole chase just because of our points situation. I talked about (earlier this week) how if I can win two or three races here in the next eight before the regular season ends, then there’s a real path of getting to maybe top 5 in points.”

The Frontrunners

At face value, the obvious championship contenders are those drivers who occupy the top-six spots in the championship standings approaching the

Denny Hamlin
Tyler Reddick
Ryan Blaney
Ty Gibbs
Chase Elliott
Kyle Larson

Hamlin has an advantage over his employee based on tenure, experience and traditional organizational might when considering Joe Gibbs Racing versus 23XI Racing. Team Penske was a Final Four format merchant, which otherwise seems to be at a performance disadvantage this year, but Blaney is showing his prowess by keeping the Ford flagship in the mix.

Gibbs has the same equipment as Hamlin, but lacks the experience and seems maybe one year away from a real title run, but could be something of a dark horse. Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson have Hendrick Motorsports pedigree and seem to be starting to catch up to the Toyotas after a winter body style change.

These are the favorites.

Reddick’s best shot at outpointing Hamlin might have gone away with the top seed if the status quo holds. Just under a month ago, Reddick had a 100 point lead over Hamlin but three finishes of 25th or worse has turned that into a 44-point deficit.

“That’s racing,” Reddick said. “We had a really good start and we were reminded about how fast things can change. The nice thing for us is that it seems like the speed is there and the potential is there, we were just finally served a dose of races not going our way. Some of it you could argue was inflicted on ourselves. What we need to have with our cars with our team we still do have. We got a couple of not good points days. Funny enough at Pocono we ran well but still lost points.

“That’s how high of a level we have to execute right now. We have to be scoring lots and lots of points, not just getting the finishes. So, we have to have clean days.”

Elliott, who was as high as third in points is now fifth, and says this system does a good job of seeding teams based on their body of work.

“I want to get as far forward as I can,” Elliott said. “Where that is, I don’t know but I want to stack as many points as I can between now and the last race and see where it all shakes out. I view that stuff from a pretty simplistic standpoint that if you do a good job, you get rewarded, and if you don’t, you fall back.

“We had two bad weeks, and we lost spots. That’s how it should work. We had a good run of races and we were (third) in points and it’s up to us to perform that level again, win races and get stage points, all those things and the seeding will reward you and place you where you deserve to be.”

On The Bubble

It’s extremely unlikely that the drivers who qualify for the Chase for the Championship but will make up the back half of the Field of 16 will claim the Bill France Cup but there is still tremendous incentive to be included.

The charter system that governs the financial state of NASCAR pays more money to teams the higher they finish in the standings over the course of a rolling two-year average. So Brad Keselowski, 20th in points, wants all three of his RFK Racing cars to make the Field of 16 for that reason alone.

“There’s always better financial incentive the higher you finish,” Keselowski said. “I don’t think the line is as clear as it was with the other system but it is still significant in nature. To a team owner and driver, the way I would put it is, it’s a needle mover.”

Erik Jones of Legacy Auto Club, 16th in the standings, said holding onto that last spot is hugely important to his No. 43 team

“Yeah, definitely so,” Jones said. “I mean, as far as what it means for the company and our goals going forward, it definitely does. I think looking at where we are right now, if we could just get us in The Chase this year, it’d be probably above what or maybe right at what we expected for this season — and it’s been an up and down year in some ways.

“But yeah, I think it’s just as valuable getting in the playoffs or the chase is what it was with winning your way in. It’s a little less visible or I guess through the year when you won and you’re automatically locked, but this playoff battle that we have coming up is just as valuable.”

And it is really a dogfight to make those final spots too:

Erik Jones +4
—
Ryan Preece -4
Joey Logano -16
A.J. Allmendinger -16
Brad Keselowski -19
Michael McDowell -34
Ross Chastain -36

McDowell says there is value and resulting intensity.

“Yeah, the value’s still there financially,” McDowell said. “How you get there is different (under this format) and more difficult, I think. And so yeah, the value’s still there. It’s still a goal. It’s everybody’s goal, right?

“Like you go around the garage at the beginning of the year and the goal is to make it into The Chase and have a shot at championship. So still very much a very important part of what we do and yeah, I feel like it’s going to come down to the last race.

“There’s a lot of cars right now in that window of 14th-to-22nd and we’re all kind of like right there on top of each other. These next eight weeks are going to be intense.”

The race to the NASCAR Chase is on: Who are the favorites?

The Frontrunners

On The Bubble

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