NASCAR playoff cutline heats up after Cindric win
By Jonathan Fjeld and Joseph Eigo
With 11 races left in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, the battle to get into the playoffs is heating up.
Austin Cindric won last Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway, virtually locking himself in. Cindric sits 18th in the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season standings so his win pushes the playoff cutline even further up.
14. Ryan Blaney 405 points (+47 points to the cutline)
15. Bubba Wallace (+13)
16. Chris Buescher 368 points (+10)
17. Chase Briscoe 358 points (-10 points to the cutline)
18. Joey Logano (-14)
19. Kyle Busch (-20)
Without Cindric’s win, the cutline would’ve been between Briscoe and Logano. Instead, it’s between Buescher and Briscoe, pushing Logano and Busch farther back.
Joey Logano earned two bonus points in stage one and five in stage two. Combined with a fifth-place finish, Logano gained 16 points on the cutline despite it moving.
Chase Briscoe earned four points in stage two and finished 17th. He only gained a point on the NASCAR Cup Series playoff cutline as Buescher rallied to 14th after starting 26th and spending just 34 of 240 laps in the top 15.
Bubba Wallace had a day that was the total opposite of Buescher. Wallace started eighth and spent half of the race inside the top 15 but only finished 21st. He lost eight points, now 13 points above the cutline.
No one lost more ground at WWT Raceway than Kyle Busch.
Busch ran seventh on the final lap of stage two with Kyle Larson on his heels and the next driver about a second behind them. Had he even lost seventh to Larson and placed eighth in the stage, he would’ve earned three bonus points and had a solid track position going into the final stage.
Instead, Busch made contact with Larson and crashed in turn one. Not only did the crash take Busch out of stage points, but it also ended his day at lap 135.
With a top-10 car that ran right around, often slightly better than teammate and sixth-place finisher Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch finished 35th. He entered WWT Raceway at 12 points above the cutline and left 20 points below it.
Had Busch finished around where Dillon did, it would’ve been at least a 29-point gain. Instead of being 20 points below the cutline, he could’ve been nine points above it. That would’ve also worsened the mediocre days that Briscoe, Buescher and Wallace had.
Luckily for Busch, Sonoma Raceway has been good to him. He has only finished outside of the top-5 twice in the last eight Sonoma races – seventh in 2016 and 30th in 2022 – dating back to 2015. Last year, he finished second after winning stage two.
Joey Logano and Chris Buescher finished third and fourth, respectively, last year. Buescher earned four bonus points in stage one while Logano earned nine in stage two. Buescher also has the second-best average finish on road courses of anyone in the field since the start of 2023 (7.9).
Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace and Chase Briscoe finished 17th and 29th. Neither driver earned bonus points in the stages.
Wallace and Briscoe historically haven’t performed as well on road courses, compared to their cutline competitors.
A couple of drivers further away from the NASCAR Cup Series playoff cutline that have shown speed and could be a threat to produce more chaos include Carson Hocevar, Noah Gragson and Michael McDowell.
McDowell stands out the most when coming to Sonoma. He finished seventh after earning six bonus points in stage one and three in stage two a year ago. Last year, he also won at the Indianapolis road course, scored a top-10 in Chicago and ran well at Watkins Glen before having an electrical issue late.
Hocevar collected his third top-10 of the season Sunday, finishing eighth at WWT Raceway after earning three bonus points in stage one.
Gragson showed solid speed before the NASCAR All-Star Race. He racked up four top-10 finishes in five weeks, including two top-5s. Road courses haven’t been the best for him but if he can rack up a good performance at Sonoma, watch out.
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