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NASCAR Playoff Standings After Darlington: Winners And Losers

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
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Tyler Reddick

The NASCAR playoff standings underwent a significant shift on Sunday at Darlington Raceway, where Chase Briscoe captured the opening race of the Cup Series playoffs.

While Briscoe punched an automatic ticket into the Round of 12 by virtue of notching his second consecutive Cook Out Southern 500 win, which he secured in dominant fashion, some others couldn’t have experienced much worse of an outcome.

Let’s take a quick look at the drivers who made moves — both up and down — in the NASCAR playoff standings. Hint: That would be everyone.

That is, not a single position among the 16 title contenders went unchanged at the track “Too Tough to Tame.”

NASCAR Playoff Standings After Darlington: The Winners

The driver who made the biggest jump in the NASCAR playoff standings after Darlington is second-place finisher Tyler Reddick. With his runner-up result, which the 23XI Racing driver registered despite hard first-lap contact with Josh Berry’s out-of-control race car, Reddick skyrocketed from 14th to fourth in the standings.

Heading to World Wide Technology Raceway this weekend for the second of three races in the Round of 16, Reddick is now 35 points to the good of the cutoff position for the Round of 12. He was a single point to the bad of the final transfer spot when he arrived at Darlington.

“This race could have been disastrous on Lap 1,” Reddick said. “And we survived that. All-in-all, a really solid night for points in the playoffs.”

The other drivers who gained positions in the standings at Darlington were Denny Hamlin (third to second), Bubba Wallace (ninth to fifth), Ross Chastain (11th to eighth), Austin Cindric (10th to ninth), Austin Dillon (15th to 14th) and Alex Bowman (16th to 15th).

NASCAR Playoff Standings After Darlington: The Losers

Taking the biggest nosedive in the NASCAR playoff standings after Darlington is Shane van Gisbergen. The Trackhouse Racing driver and road racer extraordinaire tumbled six spots, from sixth to 12th.

He is now squarely on the bubble for advancing to the Round of 12, with a three-point edge on reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano, who had previously been on the bubble.

The next biggest loser at Darlington was Christopher Bell, who tumbled from fifth to 10th in points after a 29th-place finish at Darlington in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Chase Elliott, meanwhile, fell four spots from seventh to 11th. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron — the regular season champion — plummeted four positions from second to sixth.

Another Hendrick driver, Kyle Larson, entered the playoffs as the top seed. But Larson leaves Darlington seeded third behind race winner Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin, who is five points ahead of the 2021 Cup Series champion.

Larson is 38 points ahead of Logano, however, which means he holds a modest buffer over the first man who would not advance based on the current standings.

Ryan Blaney (from fourth to seventh) and Josh Berry (from 14th to 16th) both took a three-position dip in the NASCAR Cup Series playoff standings.

Berry, who wrecked on the first lap when his Wood Brothers Racing Ford snapped loose, trails van Gisbergen by 19 points for the final transfer spot. Ditto for Alex Bowman.

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.
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