Updated 2022 NASCAR Cup Series Standings Following Joey Logano’s Victory at Darlington

Joey Logano’s victory at Darlington means we’ve now seen 10 winners in 12 races in the season’s NASCAR Cup Series, with Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick among the big names still not on the board and Kyle Larson not looking like he’s going to monopolize Victory Lane the way he did in his comeback season.

Translation: You really don’t want to go into the late stages of the regular season standing 17^th (or worse) in points despite owning a victory. Yes, we’re talking about you, Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric.

Kyle Larson’s NASCAR Cup Series struggles continued at Darlington

Can we all agree that it might not happen for Kyle Larson in 2022? The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion does own a victory and is still in the top 10 in points, but his first season in the Next Gen car just isn’t coming close to meeting expectations.

It was at Darlington a year ago where Larson started piecing together second-place finishes that morphed into a string of victories and the regular-season championship, securing him a boatload of playoff points. On Sunday at Darlington, Larson posted his fourth DNF of the year, twice as many as he registered in all of 2021.

Larson is 117 points out of first place, which puts him about as close to 24^th-place driver Bubba Wallace as he is to leader Chase Elliott. He’s still comfortably within reach of the playoffs, but it’s fair to start asking whether he’ll make it into the Championship 4 or even the final eight.

Still, it’s better to be in Larson’s situation than the predicament in which Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric reside.

Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric are spinning their wheels

It wasn’t that long ago that observers were celebrating a potential breakout season for Chase Briscoe. The No. 14 Ford won the Phoenix race and the Atlanta pole six days apart, and Briscoe was third on the points list. In seven races since, he has fared no better than ninth, dropping Briscoe to 13^th, just five points ahead of No. 16 Erik Jones.

As for Cindric, are we looking at the possibility of the Daytona 500 winner not making the playoff field? Cindric has only been back to the top 10 in a race once since the opener and is now 18^th in points. Denny Hamlin is 27 points behind Cindric, so the rookie isn’t even the single-race winner in the worst spot.

Is It realistic to think, though, that seven NASCAR Cup Series drivers who’ve yet to win this season will score victories? It’s more plausible if Kyle Larson isn’t going to win five regular-season races as he did in 2021, but it’s still iffy.

Let’s revisit that if Michael McDowell, Daniel Suarez, and Aric Almirola hit paydirt in the next six or seven points races. With Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick also still out there, that would certainly start making life uncomfortable for previous winners who are low on the points list.

The 23XI Racing watch

Darlington was another troubling day for 23XI Racing, and it’s now apparent that Bubba Wallace isn’t making the playoffs without a victory in one of the remaining 14 regular-season races. Kurt Busch’s prospects are only marginally better.

Wallace and Busch had their days end in crashes 93 laps apart and finished 27^th and 33^rd, respectively. Wallace placed second at Daytona and hasn’t been better than 13^th since.

Busch has placed better than 16^th just once in the past seven races. He dropped a notch to 20^th place on the latest points list, and Busch hasn’t been that low 12 races into a NASCAR Cup Series season since 2014.

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