
Analysis: Meet the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs field
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No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2016, 2020; Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2017, 2018; Did not make playoffs in 2014, 2015, 2019, 2021.
Favorable track: Darlington ... with five top 10s and an 11.9 average finish in 12 starts.
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Weaknesses: That said, Dillon wasn't on the radar of many as a playoff driver until the rain hit at Daytona in the regular-season finale and he raced his way into the playoffs after the race resumed. So, given it took him so long to clinch, he certainly won't be considered one of the favorites. He also has yet to land in the top 10 at the Roval (24.0 average finish) and, should he make his way into the Championship 4, he'll be a heavy underdog. Dillon has just two top 10s in 17 Phoenix starts.
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No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2020; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2018, 2019, 2021; Did not make playoffs in 2014, 2015. Was not playoff eligible in 2016, 2017.
Favorable track: Charlotte Roval with two top fives and an average finish of 6.0 in four starts.
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Weaknesses: Bowman has been starting to trend in a not-so-favorable direction, on pace to see his average finish diminish for a fourth straight season and a career-low in laps led (just 29 in the regular season). It’s been mostly a story of failing to find the front of the field so far, with Bowman turning in just three top fives (fewest among playoff drivers) and just 17 lead-lap finishes. Texas, Talladega, Phoenix, Bristol and Homestead all stand as tracks he averages a finish of 20th or worse at.
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No. 2 Team Penske Ford
Elimination history: No prior playoff history.
Favorable track: Charlotte Roval ... no starts there, but 13.4 average finish and five top 10s in seven career road-course starts.
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Weaknesses: The NASCAR regular season heavily favors winners, and the postseason even more so. Cindric was obviously the season’s first winner and is racing for a championship-capable organization, but only led in three more races in between trips to Daytona for a total of just 78 laps on the season. He’s as unflappable a rookie as we’ve ever seen and just nearly missed out on a second-straight Xfinity Series title in 2021, but as the most inexperienced driver in the playoffs it’s hard to not look at that as a weakness. Cindric has a tremendously bright future, however, and nobody saw his Daytona 500 win coming so he could surprise some.
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No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Elimination history: No prior playoff history.
Favorable track: Texas ... with two top fives and an average finish of 17.3 in nine starts. Finished 10th there last year.
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Weaknesses: What Suárez can’t afford is to go missing from the top 15 at the checkered flag on a consistent basis like he has for a majority of 2022. This is arguably the veteran’s best season to date, but he still finished outside the top 15 in half of the regular-season races — which doesn’t scream championship material. He’s a prior Xfinity Series title winner and Trackhouse clearly came to play in 2022, so he could be a legitimate threat in the playoffs if they can build some consistency.
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No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
Elimination history: No prior playoff history.
Favorable track: Phoenix ... 19.3 average finish across three starts, but won there earlier this year.
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Weaknesses: Since his Phoenix win — in the fourth race of the season — Briscoe has just two total top 10s for four on the season (fewest among playoff drivers). His three top fives are fewest as well, and with an average finish that’s closer to 20th than he’d like, Briscoe will need a major momentum boost in the early going to make anything resembling a title run. He won nine races in the Xfinity Series just two seasons ago so he’s certainly capable of going on a tear, but maybe not until next year.
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No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Elimination history: Won championships in 2015 and 2019; Reached Championship 4 in 2016, 2017, 2018; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2021; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2014, 2020.
Favorable track: Bristol ... with eight wins and an average finish of 13.0 in 32 starts. Also won dirt race there in the spring.
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Weaknesses: It’s hard to even call it a weakness since it’s a completely intangible thing, but … luck. In no way has that been on Busch’s side in 2022 (well, except at the Bristol Dirt Race when the seas parted for him to win after a battle between Reddick and Briscoe) and that’ll need to turn around for him to make a title run. He obviously would not be able to weather a similar stretch that he saw in the late summer, but many of those finishes were the result of odd happenstance that can’t be counted on to show up again in the playoffs. Road courses have also been a significant pain point for all Toyotas in 2022, and the Roval being a cutoff race is enough cause for concern to mention.
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No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2021.
Favorable track: Texas ... with two top fives and a 9.0 average finish in three starts.
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Weaknesses: Lack of experience. Bell’s capable of making it all the way to Phoenix, but he’ll have to turn in an exceptional 10 races and likely pick up a win or two — on 10 tracks at which he’s never won. That’s not to say he can’t win on any of them, it just doesn’t appear, on paper, that it’s the likeliest of scenarios. There’s also only three tracks (Texas, Homestead, Kansas) in the playoffs that, so far in his young career, he averages a finish inside the top 15. He’ll hit 100 career Cup starts during the playoffs and that number is always kind of the benchmark for when a driver feels fully comfortable at stock car racing’s highest level. Perhaps it could all click at the right time over the coming weeks for the 27-year-old.
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No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
Elimination history: Won championship in 2014; Reached Championship 4 in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2016, 2020; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2021.
Favorable track: Phoenix ... with nine wins and an average finish of 8.7 in 39 starts.
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Weaknesses: There’s some concern, of course, that the bottom could just fall out completely from the current run Harvick is on. For much of the year SHR has been off a tick as an organization, Harvick somewhat included, so it’s by far no guarantee he keeps things rolling in the playoffs. He’ll probably need to start qualifying better to make a run, as well. His 18.4 average start in 2022 is almost twice as bad as last year’s strong 9.7 and well off 2021’s 7.7. Fighting his way to the front every race isn’t exactly a championship-winning recipe. He should also hope to not be in must-win position at Martinsville, where he hasn’t led a lap since 2016 and has just one trip to Victory Lane (2011) in 42 starts.
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No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2021. Did not make playoffs in 2020.
Favorable track: Homestead ... with two top fives and an average finish of 3.0 in two starts there.
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Weaknesses: Look no further than the No. 8 car’s penchant for finishing races a lot worse than it started, with one of the worst average finishes among the playoff field (16.7). It’s resulted in finishing on the lead lap just 15 times through 26 races, with a whopping six finishes that resulted in single-point days. One of those alone can sink a driver’s playoff chances, and based on what we’ve seen so far it feels inevitable Reddick turns in at least one during this 10-race stint. In addition, Talladega is obviously unpredictable but he can’t feel too great about being the 39th-place finisher in each of the past two races there.
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No. 12 Team Penske Ford
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2017, 2019, 2021; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2018; Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2020; Did not make playoffs in 2016.
Favorable track: Charlotte Roval ... with a win and an average finish of 5.8 in four starts.
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Weaknesses: Well, nobody ever wants to be the only driver in the playoffs to get there on points, but that's where Blaney finds himself. For whatever reasons the No. 12 hasn't landed in Victory Lane yet despite the aforementioned speed, so that's some cause for concern in a format that handsomely rewards winners. He may not get off to a great start, either, with Darlington and Bristol among his worst overall tracks — he has just six total top 10s in 23 combined starts there.
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No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Elimination history: Reached Championship 4 in 2014, 2019, 2020; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2016, 2017; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2015; Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2018.
Favorable track: Darlington ... with four wins, 11 top fives and an average finish of 7.8 in 20 starts there.
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Weaknesses: Inconsistency has been the name of the game for Hamlin and his co-workers on pit road this year, and in-race penalties have plagued the No. 11 team in nearly every race. That said, if we’re talking about it, JGR is certainly aware of it and working on finding solutions. Hamlin is arguably Toyota’s best shot at a title this year, and he’ll have every resource available to ensure that things get straightened out in that area to give him the best chance possible to succeed. There’s no question he’ll need to be better overall in the playoffs than he’s been in the regular season (19.0 average finish) but there’s reason to believe things will take a turn for the better and a Championship 4 run is in the cards.
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No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Elimination history: Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2019, 2021; Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2020; Did not make playoffs in 2018.
Favorable track: Phoenix ... with four top 10s and an average finish of 13.8 in nine starts there.
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Weaknesses: Byron’s season took a tremendous turn after his Martinsville win, amassing just one top 10 in the 18 races that followed his second win for just five total in the regular season. The season started looking like it would be a career year for Byron — and by all means, it still could be — but he’s on pace for his worst average finish since his rookie year in 2018. The playoffs start at his worst track of the 10, too, so it could be tough to re-spark his momentum to kick things off.
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No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Elimination history: Won championship in 2021; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2019; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2017, 2018; Eliminated in Round of 16 in 2016; Was not playoff eligible in 2020.
Favorable track: Darlington, with five top fives and an average finish of 8.9 across nine starts.
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Weaknesses: Arguably the most versatile driver in the series, Larson’s repertoire doesn’t feature many weaknesses. Still, he’ll need to find ways to finish races, both in general and more specifically on the lead lap, both of which are far off of last year’s pace of 34/36 finishes and 31 of those on the lead lap. Circumstances happen, but circumstances are more costly in the playoffs. With the Round of 12 closing with Talladega and the Roval — two tracks known to bite playoff drivers in a big way — it’s no sure thing that Larson repeats, let alone make the Round of 8. If he does, though, that round sets up extremely well for him and you could theoretically pencil him in for the Championship 4 at that point.
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No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Elimination history: No prior playoff history.
Favorable track: Charlotte Roval ... 4.0 average finish and a win in the first three road courses of 2022.
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Weaknesses: If Chastain has a weakness, it’s his inability to play nice with the rest of the field. Reigning Cup champ Kyle Larson said in August that Chastain’s got a list of on-track enemies “two pages long,” which certainly doesn’t bode well for the notion of any of his competitors cutting him some slack over the 10-race playoffs. Chastain has shown an ultra-level of aggression working his way through the field this year — which has certainly helped him get to where he is now — but could prove costly if any of those he’s collected along the way decide to cash in on payback at an inopportune time.
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No. 22 Team Penske Ford
Elimination history: Won championship in 2018; Reached Championship 4 in 2014, 2016, 2020; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2015, 2019, 2021; Did not make playoffs in 2017.
Favorable track: Las Vegas ... with two wins and an average finish of 8.9 in 18 starts.
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Weaknesses: Likely to be chalked up as a result of Next Gen parity, Logano is averaging a finish of 14.0 so far in 2022, by far his worst figure since turning in a 15.2 average in 2017 – when he missed the playoffs entirely. Also, while he does have a combined five wins between them, Bristol and Kansas could be considered weak spots on the schedule for him with average finishes of 15.0 and 17.1 there, respectively, to rank in the back half of tracks for him. Many of those poor finishes came in his early career at JGR, however, so it’s tough to really hold that against the 2018 champ. If you’re looking for holes here, there aren’t many, though he’s been known to ruffle feathers in the past and there’s a chance it could bite him over 10 races.
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No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Elimination history: Won championship in 2020; Eliminated in Round of 8 in 2017, 2018, 2019; Eliminated in Round of 12 in 2016.
Favorable track: Charlotte Roval ... with two wins and an average finish of 2.7 in three starts.
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Weaknesses: It’s hard to pinpoint any weaknesses for Elliott, enjoying arguably his best season to date (career-best 10.0 average finish). Perhaps his biggest concern is to hopefully avoid a period of inconsistency that we’ve seen champions of the sport go on at times this year as teams work to fully grasp the intricacies of the Next Gen car. The No. 9 team seems to be one of the few to figure it out first, so it’s theoretically possible that other teams will catch up in the playoffs, especially at the handful of tracks that will be making their second appearance on the schedule. He’s also just mediocre at Las Vegas (17.8 average finish) and Darlington (17.4) and those could be trouble spots for him.