Did NASCAR’s Playoff Format Rob Kevin Harvick and Award Chase Elliott the 2020 Cup Series Championship?

When Martin Truex Jr won the regular season championship in 2023, his name was on everyone’s list of title favorites. What followed was a series of tumbles that left the Joe Gibbs Racing driver out of the Championship 4. He had one final shot to make it to Phoenix in Martinsville, but luck did not favor him as Ryan Blaney took the win at the short track and entered Phoenix instead. Coincidence or not, these scenes are eerily reflective of Kevin Harvick’s 2020 season, which saw Chase Elliott take the championship.

The Stewart-Haas Racing icon’s season in 2020 was the stuff of legends. Harvick raced like there was no tomorrow throughout the year and won a staggering 7 victories throughout the regular season. But that’s where the roads diverged.

Kevin Harvick’s domination of the 2020 Cup Series season and subsequent failure

When Kevin Harvick entered the playoffs in 2020, he had a record 57 bonus points. Fuelled by the 7 victory lane visits and the breathless accumulation of top 5s and top 10s, the first two rounds of the postseason were more or less a breeze to be enjoyed before going to Phoenix. But the playoff points format that Brian France had implemented 4 years back wasn’t going to let him off easy.

The idea behind implementing the playoff points system was to keep the season entertaining and relevant till the very last race. He did not want the championship winner to be decided months back owing to good initial performances. The consistency in performance had to be there every week for a driver to be the champion. And Kevin Harvick’s #4 team could not do that right when it mattered.

In the playoff race that year in Texas, Harvick crashed his Mustang whilst leading and finished P16. This put him in a tough spot where he needed a single point in the final playoff race at Martinsville to go through to Phoenix. He failed. His Mustang fell back after a flat tire and crashed altogether while trying to knock out Kyle Busch for the point he so needed.

He said after the race, as reported by USAToday, “They [championships] aren’t won the same way that Earnhardt and Petty did. You have to put together a few weeks and we didn’t put together these last few weeks like we needed to. That’s the system that we work in and it’s obviously skewed more towards entertainment than the whole year.”

Chase Elliott ended up winning the crucial race and fixed his spot in Championship 4, going on to win his maiden Cup Series championship at a young age of 24.

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When Denny Hamlin got to know that Kevin Harvick had not gone through to the Championship 4, he said of the playoff format, “If you have a bad race or two in a three-race series, you’re out. Everything you do for eight innings doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good ninth inning.” The same opinion holds true years after Kevin Harvick’s biggest stumble.

Few drivers in history have dominated an entire season like Harvick did in 2020 and not end up winning the championship. Jimmie Johnson in 2004, Carl Edwards in 2008, and Kyle Busch in 2018, all fall along similar lines. 2023 saw the Hendrick Motorsports stars William Byron and Kyle Larson run riot throughout the year. And yet, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney found his control in the dying moments of the year and ended up winning the championship.

Chase Elliott had done the same in 2020. Securing 3 wins throughout the year until that penultimate weekend, he faced a must-win situation in Martinsville. He took the win and found his way to the championship. He said at the short track, “I’m just so proud to be able to be backed into a corner like that and have to win tonight. I feel like that’s what we’ve been missing these past four or five years [being able to] perform when we don’t have a choice. And, to do that tonight; we couldn’t ask for a better night.”

Regardless of everything, insiders are of the opinion that the sport could not have a better format. There aren’t any drivers who get into the Championship 4 by luck. Brian France’s vision was to have a series of races that could turn and twist at any given time. He achieved just that whilst also propelling the team that can maintain its dominance every week to the championship. Ultimately, consistency as much as speed is what makes or breaks a driver.

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