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Fox News
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Fox News
10 Races Left In NASCAR Regular Season: Who Makes Playoffs And Who Doesn't
With 10 races left in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, 10 drivers should feel like they can breathe easy when it comes to making the playoffs. Two more should feel pretty good. The other 24 full-time drivers? They must take a win-and-in approach. The playoff field of 16 drivers is made up of the regular-season champion plus the 15 drivers based on the number of wins with ties broken by points. There have never been more than 16 winners in the 26-race regular season, so typically there are a couple of spots available to those highest in points with no wins. Of the 10 races remaining, three are on street or road courses (Chicago, Sonoma, Watkins Glen), three on tracks between 0.75-to-1 mile (Dover, Iowa, Richmond), two are on drafting tracks (Atlanta, Daytona) and two are on big tracks that race as a hybrid of intermediates and speedways (Pocono, Indianapolis). So who's in the field and who should be nervous? Let's take a look. They Won. They're In Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell are absolutely locked in with three wins apiece this year. The only way a driver with one win doesn't get in is if there are seven new winners in the next 10 races. That's highly unlikely in a season where there have been 10 winners in 16 races. Here are the one-win drivers and their points: William Byron (604), Ryan Blaney (466), Ross Chastain (443), Joey Logano (411), Austin Cindric (337), Josh Berry (320) and Shane van Gisbergen (242). All of those drivers should feel safe. Good On Points? Chase Elliott, who currently has a 146-point edge on the current cutoff, and Tyler Reddick (+123) should be in. That's unless there are five new winners, and they aren't among those five in the final 10 races. But for the moment, count them in. That leaves four spots available. Good … For Now? The four other drivers currently above the bubble are Bubba Wallace (+57), Chase Briscoe (+39), Alex Bowman (+22) and Chris Buescher (+19). All four would be no surprise if they won and all four would be no surprise if they slumped and miss the playoffs. None of these drivers have necessarily been on the verge of consistently winning. Bowman has 110 laps led (of 4,331 this year), Wallace has led 103 laps, Briscoe 92 laps and Buescher 16 laps. Let's take a look at each one: Wallace (+57): Wallace will have the best shot to win at the drafting tracks as well as Pocono and Indianapolis. He has two career victories, one at a drafting track and another at an intermediate. He has three top fives this year. Briscoe (+39): Briscoe has shown speed with three recent poles. He has two career victories, and his best shots will be Pocono and Indianapolis, as he has run his best on intermediate tracks. Of all these four drivers, he has the most top fives (five) this year. Briscoe made the playoffs last year in dramatic fashion by winning the regular-season finale at Darlington (which is the playoff opener this year). Bowman (+22): Bowman has the most career wins of any of these drivers with eight, and he has won at a variety of tracks. He won at Chicago last year to make the playoffs. He has three top fives this year. Buescher (+19): In 2023, Buescher won three of the final five regular-season races, including at two tracks (Richmond and Daytona) that are among the remaining races. The thing is, he has had just two top-five finishes this year. Slight Chance On Points These drivers currently behind the cutoff would need everything to fall their way and a strong final 10 races to make it on points. Their best bet is to win. Let's take a look. Ryan Preece (-19): Preece has never won a Cup race. But he would be above the cutline if he wasn't disqualified from Talladega for too many shims on his spoiler. Preece has shown more consistent speed than all the drivers below the cutoff. Michael McDowell (-43): McDowell has two career Cup wins — one at Daytona and then at the Indianapolis road course. The drafting tracks and road courses remain his best chances. AJ Allmendinger (-45): Allmendinger has one top five this year (at Charlotte) but his best bet will be at the road courses, where all three of his career Cup wins have come. Kyle Busch (-50): The driver with 63 Cup wins but riding a 73-race winless streak could be a threat anywhere. His top-10 finishes this year have come on a variety of tracks. Could they win? Carson Hocevar (-60): Hocevar has had a pair of runner-up finishes this year. His biggest problem is that he has angered too many other drivers. And in the world of give-and-take, he won't be given anything. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-61): Stenhouse has four career victories but hasn't led a lap this year. The drafting tracks are likely his only shot to win. Erik Jones (-62): Jones has three career wins but is riding a 95-race winless streak. The drafting tracks are likely his best chance, although his two top 10s this year have come on intermediate tracks. John Hunter Nemechek (-72): Nemechek has three top 10s in his last six races. He would need things to fall his way, but he has 24 career wins in Xfinity and trucks. So he shouldn't be flustered if he gets in the position to win. Ty Gibbs (-77): Gibbs is still looking for his first career win, as he enters his 104th career start. He appeared to be the only driver who would possibly challenge Shane van Gisbergen last week at Mexico City. His best finishes this year were a third at Michigan and a third at Bristol. This shows that it could be any track where he threatens for his first career win. Austin Dillon (-89): Dillon, who has five career victories, won at Richmond last year in controversial fashion, but he has always been stronger there. Richmond and the drafting tracks are his best shots. Daniel Suarez (-99): With three top 10s this year, Suarez's two career victories have come on a road course (Sonoma) and a drafting track (Atlanta). Both are on the remaining schedule for the regular season. Brad Keselowski (-140): Keselowski has 36 career win,s and while he hasn't had the season he wanted, if he is in position to win, he knows how to get to the finish line first. But the facts are that he has just one top five this year. Long Shots This group winning would be upset city, as they have yet to show much this season when it comes to challenging for a win: Zane Smith (-86, two top 10s this year), Todd Gilliland (-87, two top 10s), Justin Haley (-126, one top 10), Ty Dillon (-137, no top 10s this year), Noah Gragson (-142, three top 10s), Cole Custer (-169, one top 10), Riley Herbst (-177, no top 10s): Cody Ware (-272, no top 20s). Among them, Haley and Custer each have one career win. Prediction It is hard to say, but beyond the 10 winners already this year … Elliott, Reddick, Wallace, Bowman, Buescher and Gibbs. While other drivers have been more consistent this year, Gibbs has been the strongest lately to show he is close to the win. And he has done it at a variety of tracks. Is this a diss of Briscoe? Maybe, but he hasn't turned his recent poles into race-winning threats. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Automotive
- New York Times
Prime wanted a fresh twist for its first NASCAR broadcasts. Enter the ‘Burn Bar'
As the laps wound down in this month's NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, the big question was which drivers had enough fuel to make it to the finish line. In the past, fans at home would have been flying blind. Viewers might understand drivers were trying to save fuel, but there was no way to tell if they were actually conserving enough gas — and to what degree. Advertisement Enter a new innovation used on Prime Video's NASCAR broadcasts: The 'Burn Bar,' an AI tool that measures fuel usage across every car in the field. At Michigan, fans were looped in and could see how drivers like Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson were preserving their remaining gas to make it to the finish line. Prime not only showed how much they were using, but provided an estimated miles per gallon on its graphic in the process. 'I look at fuel as the score,' said Steve Letarte, the former crew chief turned TV analyst who helped brainstorm the Burn Bar concept with Prime. 'How much fuel someone has or how much they're using can determine the outcome, and this allows us to display it for the fan.' NASCAR teams use data to calculate fuel mileage, but every manufacturer currently has a slightly different recipe to calculate fuel usage, Letarte said. It involves an equation that takes into account throttle position (how far the pedal is pushed down), engine performance, RPM and gear rate. Prime's calculation is a 'light version' of that, Letarte said, because TV doesn't need to be as exact as the teams. What matters is showing the viewer what's happening to 'alert the fans of the story of the race,' Letarte said. And Prime's tool has another twist: It can see every car in the field at once, whereas most teams are most concerned with tracking their own cars. The origins of the Burn Bar trace back 18 months to a day at JR Motorsports, when the future Prime Video booth was watching a NASCAR race together and talking about race coverage in general. Alex Strand, Prime's senior coordinating producer, said the conversation turned to topics like what was missing from NASCAR broadcasts and what fans would want that they aren't currently getting. Tracking fuel usage came up at the time, and then again when Prime started asking the teams what they thought was missing. Advertisement 'That's when we said, 'All right, Steve, let's talk fuel,'' Strand said. 'And then we got in the lab, and this is where we ended up.' The tool works similarly to other forms of AI. Prime gives it the starting parameters, and then it uses machine learning in Stage 1 to take stock of what is happening throughout the field — every lap and every input for each driver to create a measurement. By the start of Stage 2, Prime is comfortable enough that the Burn Bar is ready for display with a more accurate measurement than if it had just been displayed from the green flag. Fuel strategy is of the utmost importance in Michigan ⛽@SteveLetarte goes in-depth on the AI-powered Burn Bar. #NASCARonPrime — Sports on Prime (@SportsonPrime) June 8, 2025 The tool's roots are in the innovation Prime made for its 'Thursday Night Football' coverage, when the broadcaster came up with 'Defensive Alerts' — the groundbreaking form of AI that predicts blitzes before the ball is snapped. On TNF, the AI tool circles a potential player who is likely to rush the quarterback based on a proprietary model. 'We asked ourselves a question about, 'What if we could predict a blitz?'' Strand said. 'And then these scientists who are on our team in Tel Aviv said, 'We can do that.' We're like, 'Really?' 'Then the real macro message was, 'You can kind of do anything. It's just a matter of what are the data inputs.'' It took approximately a year to develop the Burn Bar tool, and Letarte said the reaction from teams in the garage has been 'shocked.' After all, he said, it's not like there are thousands of people in the world who work on something this specific. 'The fact we could take something that's pretty complicated in a real specialized field and present it to these scientists and they're like, 'Oh yeah, here's your answer' — I think that opens the garage's eyes,' Letarte said. 'Like, 'Wow, they solved that problem relatively quickly.'' Advertisement Even now, the Burn Bar could be just a start. With TNF, Defensive Alerts served as a jumping-off point for further viewer enhancements (such as 'Defensive Vulnerability' and 'Coverage ID'). Prime already has a new AI tool that analyzes all radio communications from all teams for the entire race and surfaces interesting radio chatter based on certain categories (car performance, emotion, etc.). Producers in Los Angeles then use the tool to edit Prime's version of Fox Sports' 'Radioactive' feature — a recap of interesting team communications — that airs during the postrace show. Letarte, an analyst for three of NASCAR's four Cup Series network partners this season, said as much as he values the announcing element of broadcasts, 'all sports should be really entertaining on mute.' In other words, he said, TV should tell the story to someone who is watching a game or a race with no volume, which makes tools like the Burn Bar and its fuel usage display all the more valuable. 'It's not just, 'What can we measure, but how are we going to show it?'' Letarte said. 'If you walk in a bar, by the end of your first beer, you should have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the event. That has to tell its own story.' Said Strand: 'We want (fans) to know more, and we think they can. What we've seen with things like this and stuff on our NFL (coverage) is they have an appetite for it, and we think we've got the ability to present it in a simple way. So it's been pretty neat.' (Top photo of a screenshot showing the Burn Bar from Prime's NASCAR coverage: Courtesy of Prime)
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
NASCAR points leaders today: Cup Series points standings after Mexico City
Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series reace in Mexico City delivered quite a bit of rain early, leading to some early movement in the field that shook up Stage 1. In a day that delivered plenty of surprises, there's plenty of movement among the NASCAR points leaders today. Below you can find the full NASCAR Cup Series points leaders after Sunday's Viva Mexico 250. In our table, (P) indicates the driver would make the playoffs if the playoffs started next week. In addition, an * indicates the driver clinched an automatic playoff spot with a win this season. Advertisement Related: NASCAR results from Mexico, NASCAR stage results today NASCAR points leaders after Sunday: Cup Series Rank Driver Points Behind 1 William Byron* (P) 604 — 2 Kyle Larson* (P) 537 -67 3 Christopher Bell* (P) 524 -80 4 Chase Elliott (P) 500 -104 5 Denny Hamlin* (P) 494 -110 6 Tyler Reddick (P) 477 -127 7 Ryan Blaney* (P) 466 -138 8 Ross Chastain* (P) 443 -161 9 Joey Logano* (P) 411 -193 10 Bubba Wallace (P) 411 -193 11 Chase Briscoe (P) 393 -211 12 Alex Bowman (P) 376 -228 13 Chris Buescher (P) 373 -231 14 Ryan Preece 354 -250 15 Austin Cindric* (P) 337 -267 16 Michael mcDowell 330 -274 17 AJ Allmendinger 328 -276 18 Kyle Busch 323 -281 19 Josh Berry* (P) 320 -284 20 Carson Hocevar 313 -291 21 Ricky Stenhouse Jr 312 -292 22 Erik Jones 311 -293 23 John Hunter Nemechek 301 -303 24 Ty Gibbs 296 -308 25 Zane Smith 287 -317 26 Todd Gilliland 286 -318 27 Austin Dillon 284 -320 28 Daniel Suárez 274 -330 29 Justin Haley 247 -357 30 Shane Van Gisbergen* (P) 242 -362 31 Ty Dillon 236 -368 32 Brad Keselowski 233 -371 33 Noah Gragson 231 -373 34 Cole Custer 204 -400 35 Riley Herbst 196 -408 36 Cody Ware 101 -503 Related Headlines
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Live updates: Kyle Larson's attempt at Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 'Double'
The biggest day in racing features NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 for IndyCar (won by Alex Palou) and the Monaco Grand Prix in F1 (won by Lando Norris). Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson was attempting to race all 1,100 miles in the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600 (6 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but his effort fell short after a crash on Lap 92 of the Indy 500. 9:18 p.m. ET: Larson is involved in a multicar wreck that does major damage to the right-rear suspension of the No. 5 Chevrolet. Daniel Suárez's No. 99 Chevrolet came down the track after wrecking and sideswiped Larson's vehicle as he was trying to slip past on the inside. Advertisement 8:38 p.m. ET: Larson finishes 26th in Stage 2 and gets the free pass after Kyle Busch spins. 7:33 p.m. ET: Larson finishes 32nd in Stage 1, which ends under caution because of an Alex Bowman spin. 6:52 p.m. ET: From the lead, Larson spins coming out of Turn 4 and slides through the infield grass to bring out a caution. 6:30 p.m. ET: Green flag and the Coca-Cola 600 is underway at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Larson leads Lap 1. 6:17 p.m. ET: Engines are fired for the Coca-Cola 600. 6:13 p.m. ET: Television shows Larson in the cockpit of his car. 5:58 p.m. ET: Television shows Larson on the grid outside his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Advertisement 5:22 p.m. ET: Larson's helicopter lands at Charlotte Motor Speedway. 5:05 p.m. ET: Larson's plane touches down in Concord, North Carolina. 3:22 p.m. ET: Television shows Larson's helicopter leaving Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 3:08 p.m. ET: Larson was checked and released from the care center and was interviewed on television. Sounding disappointed, Larson said he would try to get over this quickly and get on to Charlotte. Larson was scored in 27th place after the wreck. 2:56 p.m. ET: Larson spins and wrecks the No. 17 Chevrolet on his 92nd lap, ending his day at the Indy 500 and chance to complete the 'Double.' Advertisement 2:38 p.m. ET: With 75 of 200 laps complete, Larson is in 20th place in the 33-car field. 2:06 p.m. ET: Green flag as the Indy 500 resumes after a 16-minute caution for weather. 2:03 p.m. ET: Larson comes out of pit stops in 31st place as we await the track to be ready for a restart. 1:50 p.m. ET: Caution for weather. 1:35 p.m. ET: Green flag and the 109th Indianapolis 500 is underway. 1:28 p.m. ET: Scott McLaughlin's No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet is shown wrecked after he hits the inside wall swerving while trying to warm his tires. McLaughlin exits the car, and his day is over — the race laps have begun counting, despite the green flag having not yet flown. Advertisement 1:22 p.m. ET: Roger Penske, chairman of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and owner of Team Penske in NASCAR, gives the command to start engines at the 109th Indianapolis 500. 12:55 p.m. ET: Television interviews Tony Kanaan, the 2013 Indy 500 winner, who is on standby for the No. 17 Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Motorsports team should Larson need to leave the Indy 500 early to travel to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600. Kanaan says Larson will need to leave by 4:07 p.m. ET to make it to Charlotte in time. 12:50 p.m. ET: Television reports the start of the Indy 500 has been delayed by rain. 12:38 p.m. ET: Larson is shown sitting in the cockpit of his car, the No. 17 Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Light rain sprinkles have been reported, holding up the command to start engines. Advertisement 12:35 p.m. ET: Grand Marshals Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez announce, 'Drivers, to your cars!' 12:17 p.m. ET: FOX Sports' Jamie Little and Rob Gronkowski attempt to talk to Larson on the grid, but he's absent. Little says Larson is in the bathroom. Gronkowski compares Larson's double attempt to Deion Sanders when he was playing two professional sports at the same time in the NFL and MLB. 11:51 a.m. ET: Kyle Larson is introduced to the crowd along with the other Row 7 drivers, rookie Louis Foster and Callum Ilott. The announcer says Larson was the 2024 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year, who is making his second attempt at the 'Double.' The crowd gives a loud ovation. Larson qualified 19th in the No. 17 Arrow McLaren/Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and will line up on the inside of Row 7.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Sport
- Washington Post
AUTO RACING: Shane van Gisbergen locks in a playoff spot as NASCAR rolls into the 'Tricky Triangle'
All Times Eastern The Great American Getaway 400 Presented by Site: Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Track: Pocono Raceway. Race distance: 160 laps, 400 miles. Schedule: Saturday, practice, 12:45 p.m., qualifying, 1:45 p.m.; Sunday, race, 2 p.m. (Prime Video and MAX). Last year: Ryan Blaney earned his second win of the season, taking the lead and never looking back after passing a penalized Kyle Larson with 44 laps to go.
