Editor’s note: Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval is at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.
The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs’ Round of 12 has officially reached its elimination phase, with one race remaining before four more drivers are ousted from championship contention. And because of what’s on the line, we’ve seen time and again how those races dial up the intensity — and the desperation — leading to dramatic (if also chaotic) results.
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The interesting wrinkle this week at Charlotte, though, is the Roval factor — and what it means with Shane van Gisbergen poised to play spoiler to the playoff drivers who need a win.
If SVG isn’t already the Cup Series’ GOAT road-course driver (and we made the case for him here), he’s darned close to it. Van Gisbergen has won each of the past four road races on the Cup schedule, and he’s finished no worse than seventh in a road race since Chicago in 2024. While he’s not an automatic win in these races, his career winning percentage on the road of 45% is still the highest in history. It’s terrifying to think of needing a head-to-head win over arguably history’s most dominant road-racing machine.
Needing a win, though, is exactly the situation a number of playoff drivers are in this week, knowing they probably can’t advance to the Round of 8 without driving to Victory Lane at the Roval. In fact, we can estimate just how much each driver is in “must-win” mode with our NASCAR Playoffs forecast model, which uses track-type projected Driver Ratings to simulate the remainder of the playoffs 10,000 times, tracking their odds to advance in only the simulations where they did not win at Charlotte.
Before we power-rank the playoff drivers based on how much they need to do the impossible — beat SVG at a road course-like track — here’s a plot of each driver’s advancement odds without a win versus their Next Gen career Driver Rating on road courses … relative to van Gisbergen. (Hint: Everyone is negative, it’s just a question of how much.)
(Note: Excluding Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott, of course, since they don’t have to worry about clinching a spot in the Round of 8 anymore, having already won their way in.)
For each driver in the mix, let’s run down how much they need to take on the challenge of unseating SVG on Sunday, from the least in need of a victory to the most, listing their odds to make the Round of 8 conditional on not getting the win:
Locked in already
Chase Elliott (100%) and Ryan Blaney (100%) have already won races this round, enough said.
Will almost certainly make it either way
This group includes Kyle Larson (>99.9%), Christopher Bell (99.9%), Denny Hamlin (99.9%) and William Byron (99.4%), each of whom is at least 40 points clear of the cutline and carries at least a 99.4 percent chance to advance even without a win. These drivers aren’t technically assured of a spot in the Round of 8 yet, but they can be considered all but clinched unless they finish last, get no stage points and see multiple drivers who are currently below the line score max or near-max points. So for all intents and purposes, nobody in this group needs to focus on beating SVG to make the next round.
Solid chance to make it either way
Chase Briscoe (91.2%) will be one of the most interesting drivers to watch on Sunday in Charlotte as his +21 point margin to the cutline gives him a relatively safe outlook under most normal circumstances. When we consider Briscoe’s 102.9 average Driver Rating at road courses this season and his 9.4 average start in those races, he ought to be in line for some stage points, a decent finish and thus a ticket punched to the Round of 8. However, in the model, things do get somewhat scary for Briscoe if he lands outside the top 20, particularly if he finishes between 26th and 30th (63.6% advancement odds) or outside the top 30 (42.2%).
Under more must-win pressure — but still above 60% to advance even without a W — is Joey Logano (64.9%), who sits 13 points clear of Ross Chastain for the final spot in the Round of 8. A non-winning top-10 drive on Sunday would likely be enough unless one of the drivers below the line scores the win, and even then, he might still be OK depending on what Briscoe does. But a finish in the teens would start to put him in danger — and he could be in real trouble with anything lower than that, which is bad news given Joey’s good-not-great record (73.4 Driver Rating) on road courses. The head-to-head comparison of Logano versus Chastain is the highest-leverage battle of the day on Sunday.
Probably needs a win, but might be OK without one
If Logano is starting to feel like he needs a win, Ross Chastain (23.5%) knows he probably will need one if he wants to make it out of the Round of 12. The non-winning route is not completely improbable with a good run — a non-winning top five would bump Ross’ advancement percentage odds up to 61.0 — and Chastain is relatively strong on road courses (with a 91.8 Driver Rating the past two seasons). But he would also need help with the confluence of several other events to complete that comeback path, including poor days from either Logano or Briscoe (allowing him to gain ground in points) and someone below him in the playoff standings not winning. It’s a scenario that’s certainly possible, but also just convoluted enough that the most straightforward way for Ross to advance is probably just to get the checkered flag over SVG at the Roval.
Win or go home
This final tier belongs to Bubba Wallace (4.7%), Tyler Reddick (2.6%) and Austin Cindric (<0.1%), each of whom goes into the elimination race at least 26 points below the cutline and, if we're being honest, probably needs a win to advance. Wallace finished a hard-luck (putting it diplomatically) fifth at Kansas Speedway as a last-lap collision with team owner Denny Hamlin ruined what was set to be a winning run to clinch a trip to the Round of 8. Instead, Wallace now either needs a huge points day and a lot of luck — even a non-win top five would only set his advancement odds at 17.2% — or, more realistically, a victory despite his Next Gen road-course Driver Rating sitting the furthest below SVG of any active playoff driver. It doesn’t look good for the No. 23 car.
Nor do things seem much better for his teammate, Reddick, who is in an even worse version of Wallace’s situation on points. The only glimmer of hope for the No. 45 team is the fact that Reddick’s 100.2 average rating on road courses is the closest to van Gisbergen of any current Cup driver, making him the biggest threat to beat SVG outright and not have to worry about the points at all. It’s a Hail Mary at this point, but it’s not crazy to envision Reddick winning the race he started on pole in 2023 and has never finished worse than 12th.
And finally, there’s Cindric, the ultimate must-win driver at Charlotte this weekend. His 48-point deficit in the standings — with three drivers also wedged between him and Logano — effectively places him too far back to point his way in under nearly any circumstances. (Even with a second-place finish and two stage wins — worth 55 total points — he would need every playoff driver below Briscoe in the standings to finish 30th or worse with no stage points to be able to leapfrog them in points.)
So the main question is whether Cindric can outcompete SVG for the win on a road course … and the bad news there is that, despite his early-career reputation as a good road-racer (with a 93.2 rating in 2022), his form there has declined significantly in recent years. (He was a below-average 62.1 this season.) In their 11 career road-course races together, Cindric has only finished higher than SVG three times, and he’s only posted the higher Driver Rating once — though it was at last year’s Roval race.
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Whatever happens from here, we know the Roval will claim four more playoff drivers on Sunday, one way or another. And for the drivers staring down elimination, the path forward is brutally simple: Find a way to take down SVG in his element — along with the rest of the field — or watch their title hopes come to a crashing halt at the Roval.