As Joey Logano continues to celebrate his 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship, the question remains: Should NASCAR revamp, or at least tweak, its playoff format?
Logano was the first driver who finished 15th or worse in the regular season to make the Championship 4 let alone win the title. His championship generated the discussion on whether the regular season should mean more.
With the Next Gen car appearing to have increased parity, does even more of an emphasis need to be placed on wins during the 26-race regular season and/or the 10-race playoff that is divided into three three-race rounds to produce four drivers eligible for the title in the season finale.
“The message we’re trying to send is make the regular season matter more,” said team owner and driver Denny Hamlin. “Those 26 races — it’s proving to not be that substantial to winning a championship, and that’s not something you want.
“My message to NASCAR would be, ‘Make the regular season worth more.’ … Because right now, over the last three years, you would say that the champion didn’t really have to do much in the regular season, and that’s just probably not good.”
Logano won one race in the regular season but then won three in the playoffs. Two years ago, when he won the title, he finished second in the regular season with two wins but then won two more times in the playoffs. Last year, his Penske teammate Ryan Blaney won once in the regular season but then twice in the playoffs.
The last time a driver with the most wins during the regular season won the title came in 2021 when Kyle Larson had five regular-season wins and then won five more races in the playoffs. That was the last season of the previous generation car before NASCAR went to the Next Gen, where all of the chassis and many other parts come from a single-source supplier rather than the teams building them.
“The points format should be reflected on wins, and the tiebreakers should be the final race, and that should be it,” said 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski. “I have a hard time as a competitor and a fan of the sport, understanding how drivers with the most wins routinely don’t win championships.
“I just don’t think that feels right to me.”
