Shane van Gisbergen became the first rookie to win four NASCAR Cup Series races in a season — on four straight road-course races, no less — capturing his first career Watkins Glen International victory on Sunday.
RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, one spot below the playoff bubble, landed just outside the top 10 but lost ground to his teammate, Chris Buescher, who holds the final transfer position to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. Will the short-track ace regain ground or win outright to clinch his first postseason berth … and send his teammate below the bubble?
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International and before Saturday’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
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Analysis: Byron didn’t go back-to-back and add another Watkins Glen win to his Iowa triumph, but he did collect consecutive top fives for the first time since Charlotte Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway this spring. Richmond might be the track that’s given him the most fits in his Cup career — despite a pair of starts there with 117-plus laps led — and it’s no guarantee, even with a sizable cushion atop the standings, that he’s leading the Regular Season Championship battle by the time we decide it at Daytona. But also, he’s on a roll and his team is rock solid, so absolutely do not count him out on any of that.
Analysis: Pour one out for the streak. Elliott’s impressive run of top-20 finishes to open the season (which, you may recall, started in February) came to an end on, of all places, a road course where he’s won multiple times. As long as he’s snapping streaks, however, perhaps he’ll halt his winless skid at Richmond, where, despite a 10.7 average finish, he’s never won in 17 starts.
Analysis: Blaney had a handful of subpar races in the weeks following his Nashville win, but he has picked it up tremendously over the past month and once again looks like a surefire title contender, ripping off four straight top-eight finishes and averaging nearly 45 points per race over the past three. Like Byron, Richmond has been a nemesis track for him, but even more so — the 2023 champ has no top 10s there since 2022 and just three total in his 17 starts for a 19.5 average finish.
Analysis: Bell shockingly still has not won since March — when it looked like he was bound to go for double-digit victories this year — but he’s getting closer, outworking Chris Buescher in the closing moments at The Glen for a runner-up. This might be the weekend he gets back in Victory Lane, too. Even though he’s yet to win there at the Cup level, Richmond is easily an A-plus track for Bell, who surely will turn a sterling 7.3 average finish there into a win at some point.
Analysis: Tough break for Larson here as he drops even though he ran a heck of a race at The Glen. (The No. 5 team kept him on the track and remarkably allowed him to finish even though the car spent part of the first stage in the garage.) He’ll presumably get right back in the mix this weekend, however, as he aims for a third Richmond win and fourth top 10 in the past five races there. 
Analysis: Hamlin finished 25th and only collected 12 points at The Glen, but he actually moved up one spot in the standings as Larson dropped to fifth. He didn’t get any closer to the Regular Season Championship, but he has a great chance to gain ground this weekend. Hamlin rolls into Richmond as a five-time winner there, with a victory and a runner-up in 2024.
Analysis: Another week, another top five for perhaps 2025’s most improved driver, who has now collected as many top 10s through the first 24 races of 2025 as he had the entirety of his first two Cup campaigns combined. On paper, Richmond won’t be a place where he’ll add a fifth-such-finish in six weeks — he’s yet to finish in the top 10 there in eight starts — but former No. 19 driver Martin Truex Jr. was flat-out dominant in Virginia at times, and it’s possible it clicks for Briscoe this weekend.
Analysis: Watkins Glen was a much-needed step in the right direction for the reigning Regular Season Champion, who has yet to secure his 2025 playoff spot but just collected his first top 10 since Sonoma Raceway. On the surface, two top 10s in nine starts at Richmond don’t inspire a ton of confidence for this weekend, but they were earned in each of the past two there — and he’s led 89 laps across the last three.
Analysis: Bowman still had a nice race at The Glen with a runner-up in Stage 1 and more points in Stage 2, but the 20th-place finish in arguably his best remaining shot to win his way in was a bit of a bummer. That said, Richmond is one of his eight career wins; it’s just that in the seven races since that victory, he has a mere eight laps led and two top 10s.
Analysis: Bubba Wallace: road-course racer? He’s shown notable improvement on these tracks this year, and it finally resulted in his first top 10 on one (excluding Charlotte and Indianapolis) at Watkins Glen, even if he did still somehow lose a spot in the standings in the process. He’s unfortunately at risk of sinking further; last year’s P4 at the Virginia track stands as his lone top 10 there in 13 tries.
Analysis: So close, and yet so (very) far. Buescher gave SVG his best at Watkins Glen and ultimately dipped to third at the very end in his pursuit of a playoff bid. He still scored the second-most points of the race (44), and he’s found his groove at both Richmond and Daytona, so there are still plenty of ways for him to hold onto his current provisional spot. He feels like a playoff driver at this stage, if that means anything. 
Analysis: But then again, so does this guy, Buescher’s teammate, and it’s going to be difficult for RFK Racing to squeeze them both in, currently separated by 34 points on opposite sides of the bubble. Each honestly feels capable of winning the two remaining races — and if Preece wins at Richmond, talk about pressure for Buescher at Daytona — so there’s perhaps a better chance than you’d think. It’s no slam dunk, though. 
Analysis: Only netting 27 points is about as empty-calorie a top 10 as a driver can turn in, but Chastain should be commended for clawing back in the final stage to at least finish there. That said, it’s hard not to see a bit of a wasted opportunity of his second-best starting spot of the season (P4) in a year where that’s been such a vocal concern of his. He’s been pretty solid at Richmond lately, though, and could string together another nice run to build some pre-playoff momentum.
Analysis: We know darn well by now not to doubt this guy. All I’m saying here is that it’s a bit confusing how the three-time and defending champ — not to mention the most obvious active future Hall of Famer in the garage — is essentially on pace to put up similar numbers in the prime of his career in the year 2025 as his 19-year-old, much-maligned rookie season. Again, fully expect him to wax everybody in the playoffs and almost certainly add a 20th career top 10 at Richmond this weekend, just think it’s odd if six top 10s through 24 races is how they drew it up. But clearly they know what they’re doing.
Analysis: This guy. Ovals or not, every so often, an athlete enters a sport and is so dynamic that they literally change said sport by forcing everyone to adapt to their generational talent. How can we not say that about SVG at this point, now a winner of four straight road courses? We’re literally watching history unfold, and every week he gets exponentially better at everything else. His first Richmond Cup start could be a difficult test, but van Gisbergen nabbed a top 15 in Xfinity Series competition there, and the team is riding a serious high. Don’t rule out a competitive showing here.
Analysis: Cindric has already surpassed his former laps-led career high by a wide margin; he just can’t seem to connect for top 10s on a consistent basis to look like a deep playoff contender, with just one in the last 14 races. Richmond feels like the kind of track that could click for him, and he could potentially win at it eventually, but he’ll need everything to go right to make it happen this weekend.
Analysis: At times during the weekend, Busch appeared to be a driver capable of winning — which would have sent shockwaves through the playoff grid — but it never quite materialized in a physical, 22nd-place finish for him. The Richmond master, you’d think, could will his way to a victory on Saturday and finally get this monkey off his back, but it just feels like this team always has something go sour on the days when it’s able to contend. RCR is the defending winner, though, so there’s a better chance than not that “Rowdy” might be able to get it done.
Analysis: A non-top-10 in a near-do-or-die road-course race is a miss for Allmendinger and Kaulig, but ‘Dinger scored 33 points and is still very much trending in the right direction at the right time. Unfortunately, he may want to look ahead to Daytona and focus his efforts on winning there; a 22.3 average finish and three top 10s in 26 Richmond starts don’t indicate that it’ll be a realistic playoff clincher for him. 
Analysis: Berry has scored single-digit points in four of the past seven races, and while there have been highlights this season, he looks about as much of a lock to be a first-round exit in the playoffs unless he finds his way to a win. Richmond should be a nice momentum builder for him, however, with three previous starts there that all went either reasonably well or pretty stellar.
Analysis: Gibbs needs to win to make it in at this point, but even if he does, it appears he’d be a one-and-done as well. The In-Season-Challenge mojo has worn off, things are getting heated on the No. 54 radio and three straight finishes outside the top 20 leading into a track he has one finish better than 15th in five starts likely don’t add up to a win this weekend.