As the Cup Series Playoffs head to Talladega for the second race of the Round of 8, we have a much better idea of who will make the Championship 4 now than ever — and that‘s bad news for the underdog drivers hoping to crash the party in Phoenix in three weeks.
While there was already a clear hierarchy in the playoff forecast odds this time last week, with a top tier of drivers hovering above the rest, every member of the final eight was bunched between 25 and 65 percent to advance, and all faced the pressure of big potential swings in the odds depending on what they did at Las Vegas.
Now, those swings have happened — and they illustrate the brutal numbers game that four playoff drivers already find themselves in after just one race this round.
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As Denny Hamlin was locking up his spot in the Championship 4 with a win, Kyle Larson‘s strong runner-up finish boosted his odds to 91 percent. But while those two solidified their positions, William Byron and especially Ryan Blaney saw their chances tumble from above 50 percent to below 30 percent (well below, in Blaney‘s case), and the biggest underdogs from before the round — Chase Elliott and Joey Logano — drifted further out of reach. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell climbed from 57 to 69 percent and Chase Briscoe from 39 to 57 percent, giving the Joe Gibbs Racing teammates the inside track to claim the final two spots.
As a result of all that activity, we now have a sizable gulf in the odds between the four favorites to make Phoenix with their title hopes intact, and the quartet of drivers currently below the cutline in desperate need of a comeback. How can they pull it off? Let‘s dig into the factors that could ignite a turnaround for Byron, Elliott, Logano and Blaney — including who their key rivals to beat are — and what needs to happen for things to go their way over the next two weekends.
William Byron
Forecast odds to advance: 28.7%
Margin to cutline: -15
Playoff finishes: 21-11-12 | 3-9-11 | 36
Although his odds to advance dropped by 25 percentage points with last week‘s disappointing 36th-place finish at Las Vegas — in a race he led 55 laps before plowing into the back of Ty Dillon to ruin his day — Byron is still within some striking distance of Briscoe, down just 15 points heading to Talladega. Byron doesn‘t strictly need a win in either of the next two races in order to make the Championship 4, either, as a pair of (non-win) Top 10s give him a 73 percent chance to advance in the forecast simulations. It‘s always tough to bank on a win — or even a top 10 — at Talladega, but Byron is one of the better superspeedway artists in the sport, having won at Daytona three times. And at Martinsville, he ranks eighth among active drivers in both Adjusted Points+ index and Driver Rating in his career.
But the odds do show how little margin for error Byron has as well. If he so much as finishes in the teens at Talladega, even a non-win finish in the single digits at Martinsville would give him just a 35 percent chance to drive for the title at Phoenix. So Byron will have to very much be on his game for the next two races — and he‘ll need to outduel Chase Briscoe in particular. Briscoe and Byron are the two drivers under the most pressure this weekend, in terms of how sensitive their odds are to slight changes in fortune. And in the simulations, they also emerge as the Round of 8‘s biggest nemeses, i.e., the pair of drivers least likely to both advance to the Championship 4 at the same time. And just for good measure, the second-biggest rivalry is Byron versus Christopher Bell. The No. 24 car‘s driver is going to have his hands full for the rest of October.
Joey Logano
Forecast odds to advance: 21.1%
Margin to cutline: -24
Playoff finishes: 20-5-5 | 4-21-20 | 6
Logano‘s odds were already not in a great place last week, though he was coming up on a series of tracks where he has a strong pedigree. Las Vegas provided one of those opportunities, and he did finish a strong sixth after having to battle to stay in the top 10 for most of the day. Because of this, Joey ended up not losing as much advancement probability as some others, but he nonetheless is in the exact same place where he began the round: 24 points below the cut. And in the odds table, we see that he would be living right on the edge without a win, even if he puts together two more runs like the one he had last week. It‘s hardly impossible to make it without winning, but he would need a lot of help.
Joey does also have a pair of very good résumés to call upon at Talladega (where he‘s won three times and is second among active drivers in career Driver Rating) and Martinsville (where he has one win and ranks fourth in Driver Rating), making him a threat to get that win. But if not, when it comes to jockeying for position, Logano‘s big battle is also with Chase Briscoe, which is the third-most impactful rivalry of the next two races. There‘s an interesting dynamic there as well — Logano is better than Briscoe on superspeedways but Briscoe is better on short tracks, so Logano needs to take extra advantage at Talladega to put himself in a good position entering the penultimate race of the year at the Paperclip.
Chase Elliott
Forecast odds to advance: 18.5%
Margin to cutline: -23
Playoff finishes: 17-3-38 | 5-1-8 | 18
Unsurprisingly, Elliott checks in with a very similar set of scenarios to Logano — which makes sense, as both are nearly tied on points (Chase is 23 below the cutline, Joey 24). The only reason why Logano has slightly higher overall odds to advance is just that he is projected for a slightly better Driver Rating at both superspeedways and short tracks, making him more likely to punch his Championship 4 ticket with a W. But Elliott has won races and produced strong ratings at both sites before as well, so for all intents and purposes they may as well be tied here. That works to both drivers‘ detriment, though, as it provides one additional evenly matched rival to fend off while trying to scramble back up above the cutline.
Still, the playbook for the No. 9 car looks a lot like that of the No. 22. Because Elliott‘s biggest statistical nemesis of the round is, you guessed it, Chase Briscoe, Elliott needs to gain as much on Briscoe as he can specifically at Talladega, the track where he has the bigger advantage — and based on the way things ran there in April, there should be a lot of Chevys up front for Elliott to work with. But he‘s in the unwelcome spot of needing to finish highly at both a superspeedway and a short track in back-to-back weeks, while also hoping for Briscoe, Christopher Bell and even teammate William Byron to simultaneously have bad weeks in order to advance.
Ryan Blaney
Forecast odds to advance: 14.7%
Margin to cutline: -31
Playoff finishes: 18-4-4 | 1-24-13 | 38
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Blaney is arguably the most tragic, and potentially the most dangerous, driver in our group of underdogs. Not long ago, Blaney was the 2025 title favorite according to the forecast model, with a 73 percent chance of making the Championship 4. But after cutting a tire just 70 laps into the race at Las Vegas, Blaney‘s last-place finish knocked his advancement odds down by a staggering 48 percentage points in a single week. He is now staring at little more than long-shot status to find a way into the final race at Phoenix for a third consecutive season.
As we can see from the odds chart, Blaney is practically in must-win mode now. He has no margin for error at either Talladega or Martinsville; any finish outside the top 10 effectively dooms any chance to point his way into the next round. And even a pair of strong runs leaves him 70 percent likely to miss out on the title race anyway. He could get help if Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell struggle, but neither of those rivalries rank among the Top 7 most important head-to-head comparisons the rest of this round.
So Blaney should probably treat it like he needs a win at one of the next two races. And the good news is that he can absolutely still pull that off. He‘s traditionally been an excellent drafting track racer, even if his form this year (76.4 Driver Rating) is down quite a bit, and he‘s been nothing less than amazing (109.4 rating) on short tracks in 2025. As one of the best active career drivers at both remaining tracks this round, Blaney will still have a say in shaping how this championship plays out — even if the odds aren‘t currently in his favor to make it himself. And, hey, if he doesn‘t complete the comeback, his record at Phoenix suggests his fingerprints could still be all over the title fight as a spoiler, too.