Mark Martin shared on social media that he has a “new favorite driver” after hearing Christopher Bell’s opinion on the current playoff format, which is similar to a point Chase Elliott made earlier in the season. 

NASCAR’s current playoff format has its fair share of supporters and detractors, with many drivers, like Bell, believing the sport should return to a more conventional way of crowning a champion. As it stands, the current system, which consists of three playoff rounds and a championship race spread across the final 10 races of the season, is meant to create drama but instead, has drawn ire.

Among those who are not fans of the current format is Martin, the NASCAR legend. On social media, Martin shared his thoughts – after his unsubtle dig at Denny Hamlin – on Bell’s opinion that the championship should be crowned by who has the most points and wins at the end of the season. 

“Only current driver brave enough to speak the truth @CBellRacing My new favorite driver,” the legend wrote on X, reposting a clip of Bell sharing his playoff preference. 

The video Martin is referring to is Bell’s appearance on ‘The Teardown’ where he was asked about a multitude of topics, including the postseason format. “Me, personally, I would like to have 36 races count towards the champion,” the star said during his appearance. 

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“And I think that’s how you get a champion of the sport in auto racing. Now, people are gonna say football does it, basketball does it. Actually, basketball has seven games. Football is a Super Bowl, but basketball is seven games. And yeah, I think you gotta have more than one.

“And if you’re gonna have a champion of auto racing, it needs to be a full race schedule. But that’s here nor there. And I understand the playoff format. Like, I understand that it’s more entertaining and the elimination style creates big moments in our sport. So if that’s what we all agree upon, then let’s do it.”

And while Martin has proclaimed Bell to be his favorite driver and claimed he is the “only driver” to speak up on wanting to see the champion crowd by points and wins rather than the playoffs, that was a point Elliott made recently. Talking to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, the 2020 Cup Series champion shared his take. 

“We’ve had a really good and competitive battle to the regular season (championship) over — correct me if I’m wrong — the last two or three years,” he began. “It’s really been pretty tight all the way down to Daytona.

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“If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks, it looks pretty solid to me. The system would be just fine if you just had a full season. And if somebody runs away with it, so what?”

He added: “Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good. Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that til I get done.”

Before the current playoff system was implemented in 2004, drivers with the most points at the end of the season won the Cup Series championship. Of note, F1 follows a very similar format in crowning champions, with drivers who accumulated the most points in a season being given the Driver’s Championship.