LAS VEGAS — All of the NASCAR Cup Series alpha dogs have advanced to the Round of 8. Let them bark.
Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske — the flagship team for all three manufacturers — fill the eight positions in the Round of 8. This year joins 2021 as the only time that the eight spots were represented entirely by the three heavyweight organizations. Seven of the eight drivers in this year’s Round of 8 have appeared in multiple Championship 4 battles. Excellence personified.
RELATED: Las Vegas schedule | At-track photos
“I wouldn’t say there’s any surprises in the Round of 8,” reigning Cup champion Joey Logano said on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “I think they are all capable of winning the championship this year — every one of them. There are none that are like, ‘I can’t believe this guy made it this far.’ I think you’ve got the best eight teams going for it; it’s going to be a battle right until the end.
“I don’t see a clear favorite or a clear this person is going to kill them all. It seems like it’s going to be close all the way to the end.”
The metrics skew in favor of these eight drivers. Every driver but Logano has multiple victories in the opening 32 events of the season and has accounted for 21 of the 26 wins on ovals. Josh Berry, Austin Cindric, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and Austin Dillon are the outliers.
Over the six previous 2025 playoff races, Chase Briscoe, a JGR newcomer, has tabulated the most points with 233. Christopher Bell, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, ranks second with 223 points scored. All eight drivers are within 48 points of each other.
“These are some of the best teams,” 2025 Regular Season Champion William Byron said. “It’s pretty straightforward to get here this year. I think that changed with Talladega not being in the Round of 12. It made that round — I would say — based on merit. These are some great race teams.”
WATCH: NASCAR video highlights
The consensus among the Round of 8 drivers is that experience pays dividends. Four of the eight drivers are Cup champions, no doubt future Hall of Famers. Denny Hamlin’s 59 career victories easily secure him a spot among NASCAR immortals. The stock for Bell, Briscoe and Byron continues to rise with each passing season.
“There is a lot of experienced drivers that made it to the Round of 8, and I think that experience allows you to get to the Round of 8 throughout the playoffs,” 2021 champion Kyle Larson said. “I guess I never thought about that, but it’s impressive, and hopefully we can do a good job to make it on.”
The lone driver to not have a prior Championship 4 berth is Briscoe, whose deepest run was to the Round of 8 in 2022 with Stewart-Haas Racing. The script has flipped on his outlook as he had an outside chance of advancing to the Championship 4 that season.
“You don’t luck your way into the Round of 8,” Briscoe said. “I feel like it’s probably the strongest Round of 8 we’ve ever had. Just when you look at the teams and drivers. It’s not going to be easy. The points are tighter than they’ve ever been; nobody has separated themselves. It’s going to be tough, but at this time of the year, you have to go perform.
“I at least know the intensity of the Round of 8. It was a way different situation because we were complete underdogs. It felt different from what it feels like right now, but at least having that experience and knowing how that Round of 8 feels is good. There is a reason the same guys get there year after year, and they have a lot of experience doing it.”
MORE: Where each Round of 8 driver is projected to finish at Las Vegas
The points reset would concur with Briscoe. After the reset from the Round of 12, Hamlin is scored as the No. 1 seed, only eight points above the cutline. That’s the fewest in playoff history by a considerable margin, with the smallest gap previously being 18 points in 2019.
All eight drivers know getting through Las Vegas unscathed is paramount. The middle race in the round is at the hallowed grounds of Talladega Superspeedway, where a driver’s destiny can oftentimes be in the hands of their competition. Hamlin knows that firsthand, which is why winning the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) holds a high magnitude.
“We’ve got really two races to make it,” Hamlin said. “Talladega is going to be a coin flip for all of us, so we have two races to try to execute the best we can and hopefully speed wins out. Hopefully, you don’t get unlucky. That’s going to be the difference. Someone is going to get lucky and someone is going to get unlucky to either make or not make the final four.”
Playoff drivers governed the field in qualifying on Saturday, filling up the top six positions. Ryan Blaney, 2023 Cup champion, is the only driver not to crack the top 10 and will take the green flag from 14th position. The Round of 8 contestants have combined to win five of the last six races at Las Vegas.