Going into Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series Round of 16 elimination race, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe have absolutely nothing to worry about.
That’s because the two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers are already locked into the Round of 12 by virtue of winning Playoff Race No. 1 and Playoff Race No. 2, respectively.
Meanwhile, several other drivers — although not guaranteed a spot in the next round — have good reason to feel fairly confident about their chances of advancing.
Then there’s the driver who’s squarely on the bubble — who would be the last one in the Round of 12 — followed by four drivers all sitting on the wrong side of the cutline. To keep their championship hopes alive, each of these four will need to win at Bristol or make up a significant chunk of points.
So taken all together, five drivers, in particular, will find themselves in quite the pressure cooker when the Cup Series rolls into the .533-mile oval nicknamed Thunder Valley this weekend.
Who Are The Handful Of Drivers Who Should Sweat Round Of 16 Elimination Race The Most?
Of the drivers either on the bubble or the wrong side of the playoff cutline, Josh Berry has the steepest hill to climb at Bristol.
Despite back-to-back last-place finishes the last two weekends, Berry still has a mathematical chance to advance on the basis of points. But, for all practical purposes, the Wood Brothers Racing driver almost certainly needs to finish P1 to keep his championship aspirations intact.
The driver in the next deepest points hole is Alex Bowman. The Hendrick Motorsports wheelman, of course, is no stranger to playing last-minute catch-up. He was, after all, the last man to make it into the Round of 16. Bowman is now 10 points ahead of Berry and 35 points back of bubble man Austin Cindric, the driver clinging to the final transfer spot.
The driver who’s in the best position to unseat Cindric is Austin Dillon. The Richard Childress Racing driver trails the Team Penske wheelman by just 11 points. Four-time 2025 race winner Shane van Gisbergen, meanwhile, sits just four points behind Dillon and 15 in arrears of Cindric.
None Of The Bottom 5 Playoff Drivers Can Feel Truly Comfortable About Bristol
The only gap of remotely any significance between any two drivers on or to the wrong side of the bubble is the gap between Shane van Gisbergen and Alex Bowman. The two are separated by 20 points. Although not a wide margin, it is wide by comparison.
“We just have to go to Bristol and go to work,” said Bowman, who finished 26th this past weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway outside St. Louis.
Despite still being in the danger zone, Cindric is thankful to have even the smallest points buffer headed to Bristol — a high-banked, all-concrete short track where a lot can go wrong in a hurry.
“What makes Bristol scary is the five-degree temperature swing that it takes to make zero tire wear, to tires turning into string cheese,” Cindric said. “If we have beautiful weather at Bristol, God knows what the race is going to look like. And we have a new red set of tires. So, your guess is as good as mine to what will happen.
“It’s a difficult racetrack for the cars mechanically. That and just the fact that, if one car wrecks 20 cars ahead of you, it could block the track. And your race can be over, too. So, yeah, a nice race to go into to have a points buffer.”
