What to Know:

• NASCAR has repeatedly changed how it determines its Cup Series champion since introducing the Chase in 2004.
• The sport has spent more than two decades trying to balance winning races with season-long consistency.
• Under the new 2026 format, race victories no longer guarantee a Chase berth – leaving two-time winner Shane van Gisbergen outside the championship field.

Winning used to be everything in NASCAR. For more than a decade, one victory during the regular season could essentially punch a driver’s ticket into the playoffs.

But not anymore.

Shane van Gisbergen, racing in the Red Bull-sponsored number 97 Chevrolet, won twice during the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series regular season. But when the checkered flag fell Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway, SVG found himself on the outside looking in.

He didn’t have enough points.

That’s not a mistake or some obscure technicality. It’s exactly how NASCAR’s newest championship system is supposed to work. And if you’re having trouble keeping track of how NASCAR determines its champion these days, you’re probably not alone.

It wasn’t always like this

It’s all Matt Kenseth’s fault. Well, sort of.

No, seriously – not too long ago, NASCAR had a very simplified format for crowning a champion: the driver with the most points wins. For NASCAR’s first 55 seasons, there were no playoffs, no elimination rounds, and no Championship Four. Drivers accumulated points throughout the season: whoever had the most when it was over was the champion. That’s how Richard Petty won seven championships. That’s how Dale Earnhardt won seven championships.

Then came 2003 – and Matt Kenseth.

Kenseth’s championship became the symbol of the problem, but NASCAR had already been considering changes. What 2003 gave NASCAR was an almost comically perfect demonstration of the weaknesses it perceived in the existing system.

In 2003, Matt Kenseth won the third race of the season at Las Vegas… and that was it. He had no other victories for the year, but because the driver of the number 17 DeWalt Ford Taurus was so consistent, his points total had him wrapping up the championship before the season was over. By the end of the penultimate Rockingham race, Kenseth was 226 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson. The series finale at Homestead was meaningless – no one could catch #17.

And that was a problem.

In 2003, Kenseth had some serious competition from a bunch of drivers who were multiple winners but not as consistent. Dale Earnhardt Jr. won two races that year. Jimmie Johnson won three. Kurt Busch won four. Ryan Newman won eight.

Eight.

In 2003, a first-place finish was worth 175 points, and despite Newman amassing a whopping 1,400 points just for victories (before bonuses), his 4,711-point total by year’s end paled in comparison to Kenseth’s 5,022 points.

Kenseth finished first – Newman finished sixth.

To NASCAR, it had a championship-format problem – and something needed to change.

Putting the thrill back in thrilling

For the following season, NASCAR introduced the original Chase for the Championship. Starting in 2004, after 26 races, the top 10 drivers had their points reset and then competed for the championship over the final 10 races.

In most sports, if you don’t make the playoffs, you’re done for the season. That’s understandable and has worked in American football, baseball, basketball, and hockey for decades. But NASCAR, a sport heavily supported by advertising, simply couldn’t tell more than thirty drivers and team owners to “Pack up for two months – see ya next year at Daytona!” because of the new playoff format.

So, the governing body created a peculiar system: ten drivers competed for the championship in the playoffs, but drivers not eligible for the top spot at the end of the year still raced ten more times. You got to play in the playoffs even though you didn’t have enough points to make the playoffs.

Yeah, peculiar.

In theory, the playoff drivers could never win another race from September through October but still gain a championship. That’s almost what ended up happening in 2004: Kurt Busch won the first playoff race at New Hampshire and didn’t win again over the next nine races. Meanwhile, Jimmie Johnson won four out of ten playoff races. Final result: Busch was the champion with Johnson as the runner-up.

For the season, Busch racked up two regular season wins and one Chase win. Johnson had four regular season wins and four Chase wins. The Chase certainly made Johnson’s eight-win season more competitive for the championship – he lost by only eight points instead of Newman’s 311-point deficit – but it still didn’t make the winningest driver the champion.

That wasn’t on my bingo card

Once the Chase format was established in 2004, NASCAR has been consistent in revisiting the rules and making changes along the way. Over the years, format changes have created some unintended consequences:

• In 2007, NASCAR expanded the Chase field from ten drivers to 12. Jimmie Johnson beat Jeff Gordon for the championship – Johnson had ten race victories to Gordon’s six, but if the old rules (pre-2004) were still in place, Gordon would have won the championship on points. The reason Johnson won: the Chase points reset.

When the playoffs began, Chase drivers had their points totals reset to 5,000, with an extra ten points added for each regular-season victory. Johnson had six wins, giving him 5,060 points; Gordon had four, giving him 5,040. The reset turned the standings upside down: Gordon had accumulated 3,849 points during the regular season – 410 more than Johnson’s 3,439, but in an instant, Gordon’s 410-point advantage became a 20-point deficit.

• In 2011, NASCAR tweaked the rules again: twelve drivers made the playoffs, but only the top ten made it in on points. The 11th and 12th spots went to the drivers ranked 11th through 20th in points who had the most victories.

2011 also had the wildest finish ever in NASCAR history: Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards ended the season tied with the exact same amount of points. Stewart finished the race first; Edwards second. Thirty-six races, thousands of miles of racing, dead heat by season’s end. NASCAR awarded the championship to Stewart based on his five victories to Edwards’ one.

• In the 2013 regular season finale at Richmond, Ryan Newman was leading late in the race and appeared headed for a victory that would put him into the Chase. Then, with seven laps remaining, Martin Truex Jr.’s teammate Clint Bowyer spun, bringing out a caution and tightening the field. Newman lost the lead following a pit stop, while Truex ultimately claimed the final wild-card spot in the Chase.

But not for long.

NASCAR investigated what happened and determined Michael Waltrip Racing had attempted to manipulate the outcome of the race to help Truex make the Chase. NASCAR penalized all three MWR teams 50 points – enough to knock Truex out of the Chase and put Newman in.

But wait, there’s more: a simultaneous NASCAR investigation looked at the actions of Team Penske (Joey Logano) and Front Row Motorsports (David Gilliland). The controversy: radio communications pointed to Gilliland conceding a spot to let Logano move up in finishing order. As a result, Logano made the Chase, pushing Jeff Gordon out of a playoff spot.

NASCAR determined the finishing order had been improperly influenced and made the unprecedented move of adding Gordon as a 13th Chase driver. Gordon ended up finishing the season in 7th place; Logano in 12th.

• In 2014, NASCAR didn’t just tweak the Chase: they essentially created an entirely different playoff system. The field expanded from 12 to 16 drivers. A new format was introduced where the 16 drivers were pared down to 12, then 8, then 4. Those last four drivers had their points reset again. The final race of the season essentially became a winner-takes-all (or whoever comes out ahead of everyone else wins the title).
• 2015: If you thought 2007, 2011, and 2013 were stories, 2015 essentially said “Hold my beer.” Before the NASCAR season even officially started, one of its biggest stars was out. Kyle Busch broke his right leg and left foot in a crash during the Xfinity Series race the day before the season-opening Daytona 500. Busch was out for 11 straight races before climbing back into his number 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Normally, NASCAR drivers were required to attempt every race to remain playoff eligible, but the governing body granted Busch a medical waiver. There was another requirement: drivers had to be in the top 30 in points.

And here’s the hold my beer part: Busch won a stretch of four out of five races, got himself into the top 30 in points, and qualified for the Chase (he essentially spotted the field 11 races and STILL climbed into the top 30 by the end of the regular season). To finish it off: Busch won the championship. He missed about one-third of the season and still came out on top.

• 2017 is where NASCAR’s playoff system starts to resemble a PDF instruction manual for a small nuclear weapon. Up until now, here’s how things were laid out:
• • 2004: Consistency matters – but mostly during the final ten races.
  • 2014: Winning is now really important.
  • 2017: Winning isn’t the only thing – running well all season is important again.

In 2017, NASCAR decided the playoff format needed yet another overhaul. The 16-driver elimination system remained, but NASCAR divided races into three stages and introduced yet another form of currency: playoff points.

Drivers could earn regular championship points by finishing in the top ten during the first two stages of a race, plus playoff points for winning stages and races. Those playoff points became especially valuable if a driver qualified for the postseason because the points followed him through each playoff reset until the Championship Four.

NASCAR also began rewarding regular-season performance.

The driver who finished the first 26 races atop the standings received 15 additional playoff points, with smaller bonuses awarded through tenth place.

If that sounds complicated, it was.

Complicated in practice; simple in concept: NASCAR wanted winning to matter, while also preventing the playoff resets from completely erasing what a driver accomplished during the regular season.

And in its first year, the system worked almost exactly as intended. Martin Truex Jr. won eight races, captured the regular-season championship, accumulated enough playoff points to help carry him through the elimination rounds, then won the season finale at Homestead to capture his first Cup Series championship.

The system finally seemed to find its balance… until 2024.

• Hello 2024. Joey Logano appeared eliminated from the Chase after the Charlotte Roval, only to be reinstated when Alex Bowman’s car failed post-race inspection. Logano then won at Las Vegas to reach the Championship Four and ultimately won the title. His 17.1 average finish was the worst ever for a Cup champion, reigniting the argument over whether NASCAR’s system was identifying the best driver over a season or simply the driver who peaked at the right moments.

NASCAR acknowledged that the 2024 postseason had generated substantial fan criticism and announced it would review the format for 2026.

Back to the future

By 2026, NASCAR decided enough was enough.

After more than a decade of elimination rounds, automatic advancement for race winners, playoff points, repeated points resets, and a four-driver championship finale, NASCAR went back to something resembling the original Chase it introduced in 2004.

Here’s what we have for 2026: the field remains at 16 drivers, but getting there is different: no more “win and you’re in.” The top 16 drivers in points after the 26-race regular season make the Chase – period.

NASCAR didn’t completely abandon its emphasis on winning – quite the opposite, actually. A victory that had been worth 40 points is now worth 55 – a 15-point premium designed to make winning substantially more valuable.

Stage points remain, but playoff points are gone.

Once the Chase begins, the 16 drivers are seeded based on their regular-season standings. The regular-season champion starts with 2,100 points, second place gets 2,075, third gets 2,065, and the totals gradually fall to 2,000 for the 16th seed.

Then NASCAR leaves them alone.

No Round of 12. No Round of 8. No Championship Four. No automatic advancement for winning a race. All 16 drivers compete over the final ten races, accumulating points just as they did during the regular season. Whoever has the most when the checkered flag falls at the season finale is NASCAR’s Cup Series champion.

NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell said the goal was to find a middle ground: reward consistency, keep winning important, and create a championship format simple enough for fans to understand.

Great!

And then came Shane van Gisbergen.

SVG won twice during the regular season – at Sonoma and Watkins Glen – something that would have essentially guaranteed him a playoff berth under the previous system. Under the new rules, those victories were worth a lot of points and the “win and you’re in” ticket had essentially expired.

Van Gisbergen entered the regular-season finale at Daytona holding the 16th and final Chase position, 31 points ahead of Ryan Preece. SVG even won the first stage, adding another ten points to his total.

Then Daytona did what Daytona does.

Preece worked his way to the front and scored his first career points-paying Cup Series victory. Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, pitted late for fuel, restarted deep in the field, and was caught up in a final-lap crash. He finished 28th.

Preece scored 67 points that night. SVG scored 19. One race erased a 31-point advantage and left van Gisbergen 17 points short of the Chase. But the irony is that under NASCAR’s new philosophy, Daytona wasn’t really what cost SVG a shot at the championship.

The rest of the season was.

Van Gisbergen finished 30th or worse eight times during the 26-race regular season. Despite two victories and five top-five finishes, he only had seven top-10 finishes. After Daytona, SVG acknowledged as much, saying he hadn’t done a good enough job throughout the year and hadn’t lost his Chase spot in a single night.

And that brings NASCAR almost all the way back to where this story began.

In 2003, Matt Kenseth won only once, but his consistency was so remarkable that he accumulated enough points to win the championship before the final race. Ryan Newman won eight times but finished sixth.

NASCAR decided winning needed to matter more.

After twenty-three years, lots of rule changes, the addition of wild cards, playoff points, stage points, elimination rounds, and Championship Fours later, Shane van Gisbergen won twice – and didn’t even qualify to compete for the championship.

Winning still matters, but like the old days, consistency matters more.