Just five races are left until the 2025 Cup Series Playoffs begin, and the current postseason leaderboard has some signs of movement after the most recent stop at Dover Motor Speedway.
Four spots are still up for grabs, and the same four drivers above the elimination line before Dover are still in position to clinch one of the 16 playoff berths. All four, however, gained points relative to the playoff threshold at the “Monster Mile” to solidify their place.
At the top end of the playoff standings, Dover winner Denny Hamlin moved ahead of Kyle Larson as the provisional No. 1 seed on the playoff grid with his fourth victory of the 2025 season. Larson is the defending winner of Sunday’s Brickyard 400 (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), and Hamlin is seeking his first Indianapolis Motor Speedway win, a potential triumph that would complete the circuit’s grand slam of crown-jewel events.
With the latest postseason projections provided by Racing Insights, let’s dive into the probabilities to see who has the upper hand for a playoff spot heading to Indy and who could be in a post-Brickyard bind.
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GREEN FLAG [Who’s in a great spot for Indianapolis]
Tyler Reddick has tasted victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway before, but that triumph came back in 2022 when the road-course configuration was in place. When Indy went back to the traditional 2.5-mile oval for NASCAR competition last season, Reddick remained a contender, rolling to the pole position and backing that speed up with a runner-up finish in the main event. Regardless of his Indy fortunes, Reddick’s 156-point cushion above the elimination barrier has him in the running to clinch a spot early — barring a rash of first-time winners in the regular season’s final five.
Alex Bowman made the week’s biggest jump in the probability spectrum after finishing third at Dover, rising nearly 22 points to an 84% likelihood of making the playoff field. Chris Buescher’s chances also received a boost after a Dover top-10 result. He’s plus-44 to the cutline, but has an upcoming stretch that bodes well for him with Watkins Glen, Richmond and Daytona — the regular season’s final three races — all tracks where he has recent wins.
YELLOW FLAG [Who’s on the fringe for Indianapolis]
Bubba Wallace stemmed an early summer string of four straight finishes outside the top 20 by converting a seventh-place outcome at Dover, putting him in the “Last 4 In” category, probability-wise. He has landed top 10s in his last three Brickyard oval starts, giving the 23XI Racing driver extra reason for optimism — even though he’s just plus-16 relative to the bubble.
Wallace may have corrected a brief dip in the results column, but fellow Toyota driver Ty Gibbs has been a recent riser with seven consecutive top-15 finishes and a string of three straight top 10s. His 15.23% number in the probability index could use the same sort of sustained oomph.
RACING INSIGHTS: Full race projections for Indianapolis
RED FLAG [Who I’m concerned about heading to Indianapolis]
Ryan Preece’s season has been marked by overachieving, especially for an RFK Racing expansion team that didn’t exist before the dawn of the season. That said, the prospects for more bright spots seem dim on the Indy oval, where Preece has raced just three times, exiting after a crash his last two times out.
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Preece fell from “Last 4 In” territory onto the outside of the probability bubble after a 19th-place Dover effort — a drop of just more than 20 percentage points. He’s also slotted to finish 25th in Racing Insights’ Brickyard 400 projections, leaving it up to the talented 34-year-old and his No. 60 team to buck the indicators at Indy.