{"id":60714,"date":"2025-08-11T05:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T05:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60714\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T05:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T05:16:10","slug":"nascar-playoff-projections-points-standings-after-watkins-glen-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/60714\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR playoff projections, points, standings after Watkins Glen race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Jeff Gordon reflects on how to grow NASCAR’s popularity<\/p>\n

Jeff Gordon discusses the popularity of NASCAR and how the sport can continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Sports Seriously<\/p>\n

The NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> playoffs are nearly upon us, with just two races remaining in the 2025 regular season<\/a> following Shane van Gisbergen’s win at Watkins Glen International<\/a> on Sunday, Aug. 10.<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen collected his fourth win of 2025 to tie Denny Hamlin for the most victories this season.<\/p>\n

Sixteen drivers will compete in the 10-race playoffs, and only three berths remain available, with 13 drivers already locked into the postseason. Drivers clinch automatic spots in the playoffs with a victory in any regular-season race<\/a> (not including The Clash and All-Star race) if there are not more than 16 different winners in a season \u2013 which there won\u2019t be this year.<\/p>\n

If a winless driver takes the checkered flag at either of the next two races \u2013 at Richmond Raceway<\/a> and Daytona International Speedway<\/a> \u2013 he will gain entry to the playoffs. If not, the remaining spots will be allocated to the winless drivers with the most points this season.<\/p>\n

Winless drivers currently above the cut line will have to weigh \u2013 along with their crew chiefs and owners \u2013 whether to prioritize points in the final two regular-season races to maintain their position in the standings or race for the win. For those below the cut line, Richmond and Daytona will be must-win situations.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the top 20 drivers in the standings following Sunday\u2019s race at Watkins Glen<\/a> ranked by playoff seeding as of now:<\/p>\n

NASCAR driver standings \u2014 Projected 2025 playoffs<\/p>\n

A look at the top 20 drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series standings, ranked by projected playoff seeding with two races remaining in regular season.<\/p>\n

Includes rank, driver, wins (playoff points in parentheses), regular-season points, and points above or below 16-driver cut line, where applicable:<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin\u2026.. 4 (24) ….. 731Shane Van Gisbergen\u2026.. 4 (22) ….. 441Christopher Bell\u2026.. 3 (17) ….. 727Kyle Larson\u2026.. 3 (23) ….. 727William Byron\u2026.. 2 (17) ….. 812Chase Elliott\u2026.. 1 (6) ….. 770Ryan Blaney\u2026.. 1 (11) ….. 710Chase Briscoe\u2026.. 1 (7) ….. 674Bubba Wallace\u2026.. 1 (7) ….. 610Joey Logano\u2026.. 1 (7) ….. 583Ross Chastain\u2026.. 1 (6) ….. 571Austin Cindric\u2026.. 1 (8) ….. 502Josh Berry\u2026.. 1 (6) ….. 445Tyler Reddick\u2026.. 0 (1) ….. 701 ….. +117Alex Bowman\u2026.. 0 (0) ….. 644 ….. +60Chris Buescher\u2026.. 0 (-3) ….. 618 ….. +34Ryan Preece\u2026.. 0 (2) ….. 584 ….. -34Kyle Busch\u2026.. 0 (0) ….. 516 ….. -102Ty Gibbs\u2026.. 0 (0) ….. 493 ….. -125AJ Allmendinger\u2026.. 0 (0) ….. 489 ….. -129Upcoming NASCAR Cup Series races<\/p>\n

Here are the final two races in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season. You can stream both races on Fubo<\/a>, which is offering a free trial to new subscribers.<\/p>\n

Watch NASCAR Cup races on Fubo<\/a><\/p>\n

At Richmond RacewayRace: Cook Out 400Date: Saturday, Aug. 16Time: 7:30 p.m. ETLocation: Richmond, ViriginaTV channel: USA NetworkStreaming: HBO Max and Fubo<\/a>At Daytona International SpeedwayRace: Coke Zero Sugar 400Date: Saturday, Aug. 23Time: 7:30 p.m. ETLocation: Daytona Beach, FloridaTV channel: NBCStreaming: HBO Max and Fubo<\/a><\/p>\n

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news \u2014 fast.\u00a0Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeff Gordon reflects on how to grow NASCAR’s popularity Jeff Gordon discusses the popularity of NASCAR and how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[1338,9680,2571,49,48,6974,5316,5315,5319,1329,1327,1342,720,10225,634,2034,44,5317,1333,2042,582,3009,457,6367,82,865,6363,2511,10223,1320,1335],"class_list":{"0":"post-60714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-auto","10":"tag-auto-racing","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-car","14":"tag-commerce","15":"tag-contains","16":"tag-contains-commerce-or-affiliate-content","17":"tag-content","18":"tag-modular","19":"tag-modular-story","20":"tag-motor","21":"tag-motor-sports","22":"tag-nascar","23":"tag-neutral","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-or","26":"tag-overall","27":"tag-overall-neutral","28":"tag-racing","29":"tag-scores","30":"tag-sport","31":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sports-news","34":"tag-statistics","35":"tag-stock","36":"tag-stock-car-racing","37":"tag-story","38":"tag-u0026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}