Let’s review: There are 16 playoff berths. Twelve drivers have already claimed spots by winning at least one race. That leaves four playoff spots and four races.
Seven drivers who made the playoffs last year are winless after 22 races this year:
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Chris Buescher
- Kyle Busch
- Ross Chastain
- Michael McDowell
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Bubba Wallace
After 22 races last year, Truex and Busch had each won three races. Stenhouse, Chastain and Buescher had each won one. McDowell won his way into the playoffs in one of the last four races and Wallace made it in on points.
Hope for winless drivers
The current playoff format started in 2017, which gives us seven years worth of data. Fourteen different drivers have won one of the last four regular season races.
- Kevin Harvick is Mr. August, having won six of those late-regular-season races or 21.4% of those he contested.
- Kyle Larson has the second-best win rate: four wins in 24 races he contested for a 16.7% win rate.
- Denny Hamlin comes in third with three wins in 28 races or a 10.7% win rate.
However, only 10 of those 28 late regular-season races (35.7%) were won by drivers who hadn’t won before. Two of those drivers each won two of the last four races.
- Harvick won the 23rd and 24th races in 2022 for his first two wins of the year, but they were his only wins that year. Harvick fell in the first round of the playoffs and ended the season in 15th place
- Brad Keselowski won the last two races of the 2018 regular season. He went on to win the first race of the first round, but that was it for wins that year. Keselowski finished the season in eighth place.
Of the other drivers drivers who won their first race in the last four regular season races of the year:
- McDowell won the Indy road course (the 23rd race of the season) last year but was eliminated in the first round and finished the year in 15th place.
- Austin Dillon won the last regular season race at Daytona in 2022. It was his only win of the year and he finished in 11th place
- A.J. Allmendinger won the Indy road course in 2021; however, Allmendinger wasn’t a full-time driver and thus wasn’t eligible for the playoffs.
- William Byron won his first race at Daytona in 2020. He was eliminated in the first round and finished the year in 14th place.
- Erik Jones won his way into the playoffs at Darlington in 2019 but finished 16th in the championship standings.
- Kurt Busch won Bristol in 2018, the 24th race of the year. He stayed in the playoffs until the penultimate round, finishing seventh for the year.
Three of the eight drivers (Busch, Harvick and Keselowski) are former champions. Those drivers won five of the 10 first-time winners races.
The two prior champions — Truex and Kyle Busch — on the list of full-time drivers who haven’t won this year might be encouraged by this stat. They shouldn’t be.
In every year that he’s won races, Truex has never won his first race later than the 16th race of the season — and that was back in 2013. On the positive side, Truex stands seventh in points and there have never been four new winners in the last four races under the current playoff format. If he doesn’t win, Truex should make it in on points.
Busch, on the other hand, has struggled mightily this year. He is 18th in points with just two top-five finishes. While he has had late-regular-season first wins, the most recent was in 2017, when he won the 21st race of the season.
What are the chances of having a new winner in the last four races?
To determine what history tells us about the likelihood of having a first-time winner in the last four races, let’s rearrange the data by year:
- 2017: The last four races were all repeat winners
- 2018: Keselowski and Kurt Busch teamed up to win three of the four races
- 2019: Jones was the only new winner in the last four races
- 2020: Byron was the only new winner
- 2021: Allmendinger was the only new winner
- 2022: Dillon and Harvick won three of the four final regular-season races.
- 2023: McDowell was the only new winner
In every year but 2017, the series has seen at least one driver win their first race of the year in the last four races of the regular season. That means the chances of having at least one new winner this year are good.
But who benefits from that stat depends on the tracks remaining on the regular-season schedule.
The tracks most likely to have new winners
One might think that the chaos inherent to superspeedways would make Daytona the best shot for most drivers to secure their first wins. But Daytona only hosted two of the 10 winners: Dillon in 2022 and Byron in 2020.
Road courses offered salvation to two drivers: Allmendinger and McDowell. But there are no road courses left in the 2023 regular season. The next four races are at Richmond, Michigan, Daytona and Darlington. While McDowell also has prior success on superspeedways, so do a lot of other drivers.
Buescher went winless through race 21 last season, then won the next two races at Richmond and Michigan, as well as the final regular-season race at Daytona. Having won last year at three of the four remaining regular-season tracks makes him a strong bet to pull off a last-minute win. Don’t forget how close Buescher came to winning Darlington earlier this season.
In 13 starts at Darlington, Erik Jones has two wins. His best finish there with Legacy Motor Club, however, is last fall’s 10th place. If you’re looking for a long shot, this is one to consider.
Making the playoffs is important in terms of sponsors, financials and morale. But the drivers who have eked their way in at the end of the season have rarely gone far in the playoffs and never past the round of eight. The future 2024 champion has likely already won more than one race already this season.