Playoff Outlook: Early Crash Knocks Ross Chastain to Tightening Playoff Bubble After Pocono

With only five races remaining in the regular season, there are two extremely crucial battles that are in the process of unfolding, when it comes to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

The first is the battle for the regular-season championship, in which the winner will receive an additional 15 Playoff Points to add to their season-long total. All drivers who finish top-10 in regular-season points will be awarded Playoff Points, as well, on a scale of 15-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

Leaving Pocono, all signs point to a four-driver battle for supremacy between Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, as well as a pair of Toyota drivers in Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin.

Chase Elliott leads the standings by three points over teammate Kyle Larson, with the pair swapping the lead between themselves multiple times over the last couple of months. While battling each other, two more players have also entered the conversation.

Tyler Reddick is on a run of seven top-eight finishes in the last eight NASCAR Cup Series events, allowing the 23XI Racing driver to slice his gap from the nearly 100 points it was in May, to just 15 points after Pocono.

Some nasty luck has hindered Denny Hamlin from establishing a lead in the points as of late, but with a runner-up result and tons of stage points from Pocono, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has taken a massive chunk out of the lead, now sitting 20 points behind.

William Byron (-57) and Martin Truex, Jr. (-63) currently sit fifth and sixth place in regular season point standings. While this gap isn’t impossible to close in a stretch of five events, it will likely take some bad luck from the four drivers ahead to return to the regular-season title conversation.

After Pocono, Ryan Blaney (-76), Christopher Bell (-87), Brad Keselowski (-104), and Alex Bowman (-107) complete the top-10 in regular-season points. Ty Gibbs (-133) and Chris Buescher (-156) are the only others who look to be somewhat in range to challenge for a top-10 spot.

Indianapolis, Richmond, Michigan, Daytona, and Darlington will wrap up the five-race run to the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

The second battle is the one more often talked about; the fight just to qualify for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Before Pocono, things looked to be rather straightforward. Bubba Wallace had a significant points deficit to make up on then-bubble driver Chris Buescher, sitting 40-plus points below the cutline, all while hoping for no new winners below him in the point standings.

After making an early exit from Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400, Ross Chastain finished 36^th, without earning a single stage point, giving him a single point to show for the weekend.

On the other side of the cutline, things weren’t looking promising for Bubba Wallace at the beginning of Sunday’s event. However, the 23XI Racing driver wrestled his Toyota Camry XSE and continued to improve throughout the day, bringing home a top-10 finish and a major points haul.

Ryan Blaney's second victory of the season was a godsend for both Chastain and Wallace, who would have been kicked into dire situations had a new winner from below the cutline emerged.

Only four drivers remain above the cutline based on their position in points, although the gaps back to the bubble have shrunk heading into one of the bigger unknowns of the season, the return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Martin Truex, Jr. (+137) and Ty Gibbs (+67) still have decent footing heading into the home stretch of the regular season. Gibbs has done a bit of a backslide lately, only scoring one top-10 in the last seven races.

Chris Buescher (+44) and Ross Chastain (+27) are the two drivers in the most danger of falling out of the post-season, whether that be through a charge by Bubba Wallace and 23XI Racing (from -27) in the next five weeks, or an influx of new winners below the cutline.

Should somebody below the cutline visit Victory Lane in the next five regular-season events, the picture changes. In that scenario, the grid would look like this: Martin Truex, Jr. (+110), Ty Gibbs (+40), Chris Buescher (+17), Ross Chastain (-17), Bubba Wallace (-44).

Beyond Wallace, there doesn’t appear to be much of a threat regarding drivers pointing their way into the postseason. Chase Briscoe is the only other driver within 100 points of the cutline, sitting -75.

With an incredibly dismal run of events, Busch and the No. 8 team have dropped 102 points below the cutline. Meanwhile, a poor finish at Pocono also derailed Todd Gilliland’s chance at pointing his way in, now sitting 127 points below.

Josh Berry (-144), Michael McDowell (-152), Carson Hocevar (-172), Noah Gragson (-176), Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (-187), Erik Jones (-210), Ryan Preece (-212), Daniel Hemric (-221), Justin Haley (-228), Corey LaJoie (-229), John Hunter Nemechek (-237), Austin Dillon (-260), Harrison Burton (-293), and Zane Smith (-302) are all essentially in must-win situations.

Photo Credit: Lesley Ann Miller, LAT Images for Toyota Racing