Through 21 races in 2025, Chase Elliott has been a model of consistency, racking up one win, seven top-5s, twelve top-10s, and rarely finishing worse than 20th. Yet under the current playoff format, that kind of season doesn’t guarantee anything. He could go winless from here on out and still get bounced in the Round of 12. And it’s not the first time.
In 2022, Chase Elliott led the Cup Series with four wins, topped the points standings, and still walked away from Phoenix without the title. One restart gone wrong in the finale, and just like that—his dominant season vanished from the record books. Sound familiar? It’s a story that keeps looping in modern NASCAR, where the Playoffs give and take with ruthless flair.
Elliott takes a stand on NASCAR’s Championship format
The playoff format debate isn’t new, but recently, it found one of its boldest critics in ‘Young Elvis’. It started with a tweet from journalist Jeff Gluck, who asked Elliott directly about the format debate. But Chase Elliott didn’t flinch when asked where he stood in the debate over NASCAR’s playoff format. He made his position clear: “If somebody runs away with it, so what?” he said. “Let’s celebrate that somebody was just that good.”
“We’ve had a really good and competitive battle to the regular season (championship) over — correct me if I’m wrong the last two or three years,” Elliott said. “It’s really been pretty tight all the way down to Daytona.” Take 2023 at Daytona, for instance: Bubba Wallace clinched the final playoff spot with just a 16-point buffer over Ryan Preece, who sat precariously behind the cutline entering the race. Drivers like Ty Gibbs and Daniel Suárez, within striking distance, failed to secure stage or finishing points needed to overtake Wallace.
Here’s one for ya: I asked @chaseelliott about the topic of the week with the NASCAR championship format debate, and he endorsed full-season points.
Chase: “We’ve had a really good and competitive battle to the regular season (championship) over — correct me if I’m wrong — the…
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) July 25, 2025
“If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks, it looks pretty solid to me,” he continued. “The system would be just fine if you just had a full season.” Elliott wasn’t done. He fired one more shot across the bow of NASCAR’s modern philosophy: “Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that till I get done.” He was pushing back against NASCAR’s growing attempts to mirror stick-and-ball sports especially the playoff-style championship system that mimics the NFL or MLB. He believes motorsports are already exciting on their own and don’t need that kind of structure. To him, a full season of close battles is enough to crown a worthy champion.
Joey Logano’s “lucky” playoff path adds fuel to drivers’ format frustrations
Joey Logano’s 2024 run is a textbook case of how NASCAR’s playoff points system can flip the script. After barely making it into the postseason, Logano looked eliminated following the Round of 8 until Alex Bowman’s car failed post-race inspection due to a minimum weight violation. That disqualification bumped Logano above the cutline, sending him through. A week later, he capitalized at Las Vegas, securing a clutch win and locking in his spot in the Championship 4.
The 2023 champion Ryan Blaney has also faced constant heat from fans who believe his title was “lucky” or undeserved. Some even labeled it a “Mickey Mouse” championship because he didn’t lead the regular season in points. Blaney didn’t take that lightly. “It gets under my skin,” he admitted in a Sirius XM NASCAR Radio interview. He defended his run, but still acknowledged the issue: “Would I like to see the playoffs change a little bit? Yes, I would. I’m not a massive fan of like the one race take-all type deal.” Instead, Blaney proposed a better balance. “I think you have to have at least a handful of races in there to the end, where it’s a little bit of consistency.”
For a long time, this kind of pushback came mostly from the fans. But now? It’s the drivers. The champions. The faces of the sport. And they’re saying out loud what a lot of people have been thinking for years. NASCAR’s current format may deliver headlines and drama, but it doesn’t always deliver the right champion. The question now isn’t whether the debate will continue. It’s how long NASCAR can afford to ignore its own stars before change becomes the only option left on the table.
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