That rumbling you heard from Mexico City’s high elevations could have been the enthusiastic fans in the stadium section of Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — or it just might have been Shane van Gisbergen shaking up the NASCAR Cup Series playoff race with his dominant road course victory instead.
And while the battle along the elimination line went from zero to 19 points after the Viva Mexico 250, adding another winner to make it 10 this season has the playoff race still feeling tight with only 10 races remaining until the field is set.
Let’s check in on the bubble battle as we exit Mexico City and get ready to head to Pocono Raceway for Prime Video’s last race of the season (2 p.m. ET, Sunday, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Stats courtesy of Racing Insights.
Drivers provisionally qualified for playoffs with a win (10): Kyle Larson (three wins), Denny Hamlin (three wins), Christopher Bell (three wins), William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, Shane van Gisbergen and Ross Chastain.
Winless drivers more than 100 points above the elimination line (two): Chase Elliott (+146) and Tyler Reddick (+123).
With 12 spots filled by the above drivers, there are four spots open for the rest of the field to fight over, including these drivers closest to the elimination line:
| Rank | Driver | Cutoff |
|---|---|---|
| 13 | Bubba Wallace | +57 |
| 14 | Chase Briscoe | +39 |
| 15 | Alex Bowman | +22 |
| 16 | Chris Buescher | +19 |
| ELIMINATION LINE | ||
| 17 | Ryan Preece | -19 |
| 18 | Michael McDowell | -43 |
| 19 | AJ Allmendinger | -45 |
| 20 | Kyle Busch | -50 |
Bubble analysis: Besides race winner SVG, the only two drivers who gained points against the elimination line this week were the Hendrick Motorsports duo of Chase Elliott (who gained four points) and Alex Bowman (up nine points) after they finished third and fourth, respectively, at Mexico City.
Elliott is the active leader in road-course wins with seven but has yet to win on a road course in the Next Gen car, so Elliott showing signs of life at Mexico City could mean he will be a factor in upcoming road races at Chicago, Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Meanwhile, Bowman was the winner at Chicago last season, so those two could quickly make it 12 different winners.
Another driver who is adept at road-course racing is Michael McDowell, and although he lost six points against the elimination line and sits 43 points below after a fifth-place finish at Mexico City, he jumped five spots in the standings due to some other drivers like AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch and Carson Hocevar not taking advantage of the trip south of the border. Despite this development, McDowell still might need to win his way into the playoffs.
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Off the charts: Finishing sixth at Mexico City, John Hunter Nemechek still lost 20 points to the elimination line, which is the perfect illustration of what a winner like SVG (coming from 130 points below the elimination line) can do to everyone else’s playoff chances. Ty Gibbs, who had a stronger car than his 11th-place finish indicated, lost 25 points against the elimination line and fell below Nemechek and into 25th place in the playoff standings.
With three road courses and two superspeedways — EchoPark (formerly Atlanta) and Daytona — on the schedule before the playoffs begin, there will be chances for more havoc to hit. However, it’s debatable whether Pocono will be one of those wild weeks.
Most of the former winners at Pocono are either already locked into the playoffs or reside above the elimination line, including Denny Hamlin (seven wins), Ryan Blaney (two wins) — and even one-time winners Elliott, Bowman, Chris Buescher and Joey Logano. However, the exceptions to the rule are Busch (four wins) and Brad Keselowski (one win), who are both in need of a big turnaround as they sit 50 and 140 points below the elimination line, respectively.