As the Cup Series returns from its Olympic vacation, the stakes couldn‘t be higher. Just four races — at Richmond, Michigan, Daytona and Darlington — remain before the postseason field is set, which means it‘s an especially desperate time for those winless drivers seeking the four playoff slots that haven‘t been locked in yet.
What is each bubble driver‘s path to the playoffs?
We‘ll enlist the help of 10,000 simulations of the rest of the regular season using my Adjusted Points+ index, rating every driver‘s ability at each remaining track type and their projected odds of finishing in each position, each race. Results that have the biggest differentials between simulations where a driver makes the playoffs and not are the ones that are most essential along their path to glory.
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Martin Truex Jr.
Status: No. 13 in playoff picture, +108 to the cutline.
What he needs: Avoid a catastrophe.
By far, the scenarios that have the biggest impact — in either direction — on Truex‘s chances of piloting his way into the playoffs are poor finishes at each of the remaining tracks. In the (rare) cases where he misses the playoffs, Truex has an average finish of 28.6, including 30th at Michigan and Darlington. And in roughly two-thirds of the simulations where he falls short, he places 30th or worse in at least three of the four remaining races. So barring a string of catastrophic finishes — or an extremely remote situation like Simulation No. 252, where Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. shut him out on wins — Truex ought to be in good shape for the playoffs, whether he gets in on points or by winning a race (which happened far more times in the simulations than Truex outright missing the playoffs).
Ty Gibbs
Status: No. 14 in playoff picture, +42 to the cutline.
What he needs: Outduel Kyle Busch at Richmond and/or Bubba Wallace at Michigan and Darlington.
Gibbs is in solid enough shape that he can borrow some of the Truex playbook from above: In order to make the playoffs, just avoid too many horrible finishes. (Gibbs gets in more than 50% of the time if he finishes 25th or better in half of the remaining races.) However, it‘s also worth keeping an eye on a few specific matchups for Gibbs. In scenarios where he makes the playoffs versus not, Gibbs finishes nine spots better on average at Michigan and Darlington and six spots better at Richmond. But Busch also finishes 4.2 spots worse at Richmond and Wallace finishes 4.1 spots worse at Darlington and Michigan when Gibbs makes the playoffs. It‘s no coincidence because those are the two most likely drivers currently outside the playoffs to barge their way in — and Gibbs needs to outperform them.
Chris Buescher
Status: No. 15 in playoff picture, +17 to the cutline.
What he needs: A strong run for the RFK Fords at Richmond.
Buescher‘s position is a lot shakier than either Truex’s or Gibbs’, so there are more ways for things to go wrong for him — including being outdriven by Wallace at Michigan and Darlington (the two have been essentially equal on ovals so far this season), or a disaster at Daytona (he finishes 20th or worse in 58% of the simulations where he misses the playoffs). But Buescher will shore up his position if he and RFK Racing teammate Brad Keselowski run well at Richmond. It‘s a short track where they’ve had a lot of success since Keselowski joined the organization for the 2022 season; RFK has the third-best average finish per driver at short tracks (14.3) of any team over that span. In simulations where both RFK cars finish among the top 10 at Richmond, Buescher makes the playoffs 88% of the time.
Ross Chastain
Status: No. 16 in playoff picture, +7 to the cutline.
What he needs: Show up at Darlington.
That Chastain is fighting for his playoff life right now is a testament to just how much his driving has fallen off since early in the 2022 season, when he was looking like one of the best racers in the sport. He has hit a snag at this stage in each of the past three seasons since joining Trackhouse Racing, but this year‘s slump is worse than most; he has zero top 10s and an average finish of 26.5 since late June. To stabilize his postseason hopes, Chastain needs a particularly strong showing at Darlington, where he owns two career top fives in 10 starts. In the simulations where Chastain makes the playoffs, he finishes at an average position of 12.7 in the Southern 500, while he has an average finish of 22.8 in the sims where he misses out.
Bubba Wallace
Status: No. 17 in playoff picture, -7 to the cutline.
What he needs: Be in the mix to win at Daytona.
Although Wallace is below the postseason cutoff, facing immense pressure with his playoff odds basically being a coin flip, he also has some positive factors going for him. One of them is he tends to do well at intermediate ovals like Michigan: Wallace has a pair of top 10s there in his past five races — and he‘s won at Kansas, a sister track to Michigan. He also has an even higher rate of top 10s at Darlington than Michigan. Plate tracks like Daytona are consistently Wallace‘s best track type, with a resume that includes his other win at Talladega. Asking anyone to win their way into the playoffs amid the chaos of the Daytona night race is a tall task, but he takes the checkered flag there in 7% of the simulations where he ends up making the playoffs. Moreover, Wallace‘s odds of making the playoffs rise to 65% in the simulations where he finishes in the top five at Daytona.
Kyle Busch and Chase Briscoe
Busch‘s Status: No. 19 in playoff picture, -112 to the cutline.
Briscoe‘s Status: No. 18 in playoff picture, -83 to the cutline.
What they need: Hope for chaos.
At this point, we‘ve reached the tier of drivers where one of their only viable paths to the playoffs is to win. It‘s still technically possible that either Busch or Briscoe could get in on points alone, but it‘s getting pretty unlikely. In the simulations where Briscoe doesn‘t win, he only makes the playoffs 0.7% of the time, and for Busch that number is only 0.1%. (To put it another way: when Briscoe makes the playoffs in our simulations, 88% of the time he does it via winning, while Busch uses a win 98% of the times that he makes it.) And where better might an underdog driver get that playoff-clinching win than at Daytona, where the outcome is less predictable than elsewhere? Briscoe finishes 9.1 spots better at Daytona in the simulations where he makes the playoffs than not, while Busch finishes 10.4 spots better at Daytona in his playoff-bound sims.