Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney ended the 2025 regular season on a high note, claiming a thrilling win on the high banks at Daytona International Speedway. A fellow former Championship 4 driver will look to build some momentum of his own this weekend, as Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain aims to ride the wall at the “Lady in Black” right into the Round of 12.
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs contenders after the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona and before Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
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Analysis: If that didn’t look like a championship-winning kind of driver delivering a signature moment on Saturday night at Daytona, well, it’s tough to say what you’re seeing. Blaney has all the pieces in place, momentum included, for title No. 2, and things have started working a little bit more at Darlington than earlier in his career. Feels like a grand time for his first Southern 500 win.
Analysis: The Regular Season Champion will actually begin the playoffs as the No. 2 seed, but not to worry — Byron and the No. 24 team have a very, very deep run ahead of them despite just two top 10s in the last six races. A Southern 500 win is within reach for him as well, and after leading 243 laps in the spring at Darlington only to finish runner-up, he’ll be hungry.
Analysis: Larson briefly looked like he had a shot to end his unbelievable drafting-track drought, but he’ll happily settle for a sixth-place run that allowed him to walk out of Daytona as the top seed in the playoffs. Darlington is such an interesting track for him, because he could have many more wins at it than the singular one he has. In his lone victory there, he led 55 laps — but he has four other races he did not win in which he led 124-plus laps each.
Analysis: Here we go again. Another year, another legitimate shot at title No. 1 for Hamlin, who enters with a nice cushion that should help him sail through the first round. No. 11 is also one of the best all-time at Darlington — which is really saying something, given the track history there — and could easily assert his dominance over the field in Race 1. 
Analysis: It’s legitimately wild that the guy who won three of the season’s first four races is entering the playoffs as the fifth seed, but, hey, he hasn’t won since then. There’s no denying the championship potential here, though, and No. 20 has an excellent shot to make it to a third Championship 4 in four years. Though he’s yet to win at Darlington, Bell is riding two straight top threes there and could remind everyone why he was such a force earlier this year.
Analysis: After such a display of consistency the whole year, the No. 9 team can’t feel good about finishing the regular season with just one finish better than 13th (10th, Daytona) since mid-July. Darlington has been a bit of a mixed bag for him, and even after 17 total starts there he’s finished exactly where he starts, on average (15.8 for each).
Analysis: Two Chases in these playoffs, two legitimate title contenders. Briscoe has been an elite driver in the second half of the year and enters as a sneaky yet obvious driver capable of taking home the championship, and he might immediately enter favorite status before we even hit Labor Day. The defending Southern 500 winner locked in last year with a resounding win, and is only even better positioned this year to take home that crown.
Analysis: Chastain finds himself in the unusual position of having just two top 10s since Michigan — which ran on June 8 — yet still being in position to advance after the Round of 12. Of course, three weeks separate him from now until then, and much can change in that time, but No. 1 has a better handle on Darlington than most these days and should be right in the mix for his first Southern 500 win on Sunday despite the summer lull.
Analysis: The reigning Regular Season Champion entering the playoffs with single-digit top 10s and having to fight for his life to even make the postseason certainly wasn’t how Reddick and Co. likely drew it up, but here we are. He’s in, and still has an excellent shot to return to the Championship 4. No. 45 owns three top 10s in the last four Darlington races, with a whopping 307 laps led in that span.
Analysis: A bummer of a day for Wallace at Daytona, where he likely could have contended for the win but got caught up in the big wreck. Still, it didn’t affect him all too much as he still enters the playoffs on the right side of the bubble and heading to a track at which he had four straight top-nine finishes from 2022-24.
Analysis: Bowman had a not-so-enjoyable Saturday night, sweating out the future of his season from outside the car with no ability to influence his outcome, but that’ll happen when a driver is not locked in by Race 26. The No. 48 has advanced, however, but could get off to a dreadful start. Bowman has just one lap led at Darlington apart from a 41-lap showing in a runner-up in 2020, and just four top 10s in 15 starts there.
Analysis: What an interesting, ever-changing sport we’ve got — not only is the 2024 Regular Season Champion exhaling because he barely made this year’s postseason, last year’s champion — a three-time one, at that — enters this year’s 10-race gauntlet just a point off the elimination line with fewer top 10s than three drivers who missed the cut. It doesn’t look great, but this is Joey Logano, so would you be surprised in the least if he added another Darlington win to his resume on Sunday? Me neither.
Analysis: Before wrecking out at Daytona and collecting a single point, Cindric had averaged 29.4 in the five races prior, which is exactly the kind of consistency that rewards drivers in the playoffs. A Team Penske car in the postseason is a dangerous thing, and he’ll look to get started off on the right foot at Darlington, where he typically finishes in the top 20 but has yet to land a top 10.
Analysis: It’s really something to see SVG, a Cup Series rookie, in sixth place in the standings entering his first playoffs; it really shows the value of not just making the postseason but coming in with a plethora of bonus points. He’s said right along how excited he is to get to Darlington, too, where he has a legitimate shot to collect a top 10 and really start to make his peers sweat.
Analysis: Look past him if you want, but don’t act like Dillon isn’t capable of making at least a little noise in these playoffs; he’s got 10 top 10s combined at the Round of 16 tracks and at least one at each. If he pops off at least two, he’s got a great shot to control his own destiny, before even factoring in anybody else’s potential bad luck. Half of those top 10s came at Darlington, so he needs to get off to a good start.
Analysis: Berry picked a good time to compile his first back-to-back top 10s since March as he gains a little mojo entering his first Cup Series Playoffs. He’s an old-school kind of driver that should excel at an old-school kind of track like Darlington, and a P3 there last spring for Stewart-Haas Racing inspires confidence he can start off on the right foot.