Chase Elliott airs it out on NASCAR playoff, championship format debate

Chase Elliott made it known Friday where he stands on the NASCAR playoff and championship format debate. Elliott, speaking with the media at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, endorsed the full-season points format.

“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. It’s really been pretty tight all the way down to Daytona. If you just take that as your sample set over the first 26 weeks, it looks pretty solid to me. The system would be just fine if you just had a full season,” Elliott said, via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “And if somebody runs away with it, so what? Let’s celebrate the fact that somebody ran away with it, that somebody was just that good.

“Motorsports does not have to be like everybody else to be successful. And I’ll stand by that till I get done.”

Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, has been the most consistent driver this season. With one win, 12 top 10s and an average finish of 10th through 21 races, Elliott holds a 16-point advantage over Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron for the regular season points lead. Under the old full-season points format, Elliott would have a 125-point advantage over Christopher Bell in the race for the championship.

Chase Elliott bangs the drum for full-season points format

But that’s not the format NASCAR uses to crown a champion. Under the playoff format, adopted in 2004 and tweaked along the way, winning is everything. NASCAR switched to an elimination-style format in 2014, where 16 drivers make up the field. Winning at least one regular season race grants entry into the postseason. The playoffs take part across 10 races with four drivers eliminated after every three races until four remain. The season finale is a winner-takes-all championship race.

The current playoff format came under fire following Joey Logano’s victory in the championship race at Phoenix this past season, in which the Team Penske driver captured his third title. Logano had an average finish of 17.1, the worst for a driver in a championship-winning season.

NASCAR made no changes to the playoff format for 2025. 2026, however, could be in play for a shake-up. NASCAR said in January it plans to assemble a group consisting of drivers, team owners, manufacturers and media partners to determine if the playoff format should look different next season.