“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” This saying by financial advisors applies heavily to the NASCAR playoff system. In 2024, Joey Logano barely scraped through the first half of the season. He clinched a race win only after a quintuple overtime finish in Nashville, following which the playoffs had three wins in store for him. On the other hand, Kyle Larson posted 6 wins both in the regular season and the playoffs – and somehow still fell through. And the system is not leaning in his favor either.

Joey Logano’s third Cup Series title was wrapped in controversy. How can a driver posting only 13 top-tens and 7 top-fives along with a meager 17.11 average finish pose with the Bill France trophy at Phoenix? The system allows that. And NASCAR’s president heavily defends it, to Kyle Larson’s dismay.

Any sliver of hope robbed for Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson was the shining beacon in the Cup Series this year. Everybody awaited his second title run, as the Hendrick Motorsports star picked up double the wins than any other racer in the Charlotte playoff race. He juggled his Cup Series career and a double attempt, and yet managed to be the highest achiever. Yet Larson slipped up at the most crucial time in this system.

He lost significant points with that late-race spin at Homestead. Then he missed the Championship 4 round by a handful of points, despite winning two playoff races. The racer’s misery displayed the glaring feature of the playoff system – merit was handed only when one showed consistency in the 10-race playoffs. And NASCAR intends to stick to this system.

A week ago, Kyle Larson dropped an optimistic note about the 2025 season. With NASCAR dropping hints the system would receive a few tweaks, the HMS star hoped the new format would “benefit us somehow.” However, NASCAR president Steve Phelps crashed these hopes recently in an interview with The Athletic. “Win-and-you’re-in is really what we heard from fans, and that’s what the industry came up with when they came up with this format,” he said, defending the format.

Phelps also tipped his hat to Logano: “Joey performed. He went to Vegas and won and then went to Phoenix and won. So to me, he’s a deserving champion. He ran the gauntlet of a very difficult, and arguably the most difficult playoffs in all sports. And he is a deserving champion because of that.”

However, Phelps’ over-emphasis on fans’ expectations may not be accurate. NASCAR expert Eric Estepp opined that a wide spectrum exists in the fanbase, and not all fans may like the system. “Phelps says there that they heard from fans – wins should mean more. But…how many fans truly want winning to be rewarded in such a way? … It shouldn’t mean that points racing should die out completely. It obviously hasn’t – William Byron pointed his way into the Championship 4 and didn’t win any playoff races. But points racing is far less of a priority now than it was 10+ years ago. Have we swung the pendulum too far away from points racing?”

Yet all hope is not lost for Kyle Larson, as Phelps also dropped some hints of change.

Change is on the table, but not too much

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The current championship format first debuted in 2004. Before that, several title runs in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s were decided with races still left on the schedule. Legends like Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough, and others won that way. It climaxed in 2003 when Matt Kenseth clinched the championship after gathering only one early-season victory and 23 more top-10 finishes.

However, the Chase format has been around for two decades. Moreover, the elimination format introduced in 2014 has been there for a decade and Joey Logano’s 17.11 average finish and championship trophy spell the need for change. Kyle Larson‘s hopes may not be entirely snuffed out as Steve Phelps mentioned introducing some tweaks.

Alongside his support for the playoff system, Phelps also added his contradictory take in the Athletic interview. “We are going to look at it, and that will be an industry-wide decision, just like the existing format is. So we’ll get a cross-functional team consisting of drivers, teams, NASCAR folks and sit in a room and see if there’s something better. Because for everyone that wants to make a change, you have some on the other side that doesn’t want to make a change.” Indeed, after picking up its third consecutive championship title, Team Penske would definitely pass on joining Kyle Larson’s side.

So, although Kyle Larson’s hopes for change have dashed a bit, they are not entirely non-existent. As the 2025 season rolls into view, let us wait and see what NASCAR has in store for us.