NASCAR had a way with timely cautions late in races this weekend, except the Cup race, where Chase Elliott won the race and in turn took the championship. One man wants to win the MotoGP championship and he led a historic race for Suzuki, as the manufacture had accomplished something it had not done in the last 38 years. Yamaha pissed a bunch of people off. The DTM is ending an era and entering another unknown, but it had a familiar champion. Honda dominated in its backyard of Motegi. The focus will be on the finish to the NASCAR season. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Playoff Trends
Another NASCAR season is behind us and with yesterday's Phoenix race concluding we have finished seven seasons with this playoff format.
There have been tweaks to the four-round, three-race segments eliminations over the last seven seasons, but a game plan is developing for what it takes to get through each round, making the final four and winning the championship.
With 16 drivers qualifying for the ten-race fight for the championship, there are many possible outcomes, but with four drivers eliminated after the first three races, it is crucial to get results early and there are certain trends it will take to advance.
We will go round-by-round, seeing what is common amongst those who did not advance and those that did.
Round One
With 16 drivers competing for 12 spots and it only possible for ten drivers to be in the top ten of each race, getting out of the first round does not require great success, though it does help.
On only five occasions has a driver not had a top ten finish in round one and advanced to round two:
Kasey Kahne (2014)
Carl Edwards (2014)
Austin Dillon (2016)
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. (2017)
Denny Hamlin (2020)
One top ten finish can help, but it is not a guarantee.
Nine of 28 drivers eliminated have had at least one top ten finish. Five of those nine came in the first three seasons, prior to playoff points carrying over.
Of those nine, two had multiple top ten finishes. In 2018, Jimmie Johnson had finishes of 22nd, eighth and eighth and failed to advance after that infamous failed attempt for the lead on Martin Truex, Jr. in the final corners of the inaugural Charlotte roval race. Ryan Newman had finishes of tenth, fifth and 32nd in round one in 2019 and failed to advance.
Top five finishes are a better indicator of who will advance, but those are not a lock. Three drivers have had a top five finish in round one and not advanced:
Jamie McMurray (2015)
Ryan Newman (2019)
William Byron (2020)
McMurray's 2015 failure, the aforementioned Johnson first round elimination in 2018 and Aric Almirola in 2019 are the only examples of drivers that have averaged a finish below 15th in the first three races and not advanced. McMurray was at 11.333, Johnson at 12.667 and Almirola at 14.333.
Newman's 2019 failure saw a 32nd-place finish in the third race at Charlotte drag his average finish down to 15.667 and Byron this year was 21st at Richmond and 38th at Bristol, dropping his average to 21.333.
The average finish for a driver eliminated in round one is 20.3214.
Round Two
Let's go over the drivers who advanced from round one but did not have a top ten finish.
Kahne, Dillon and Stenhouse all did not advance from round two after that round one start.
Kahne was 13th, 23rd and 20th in round one, and had finishes of 22nd, tenth and 12th in round two.
Dillon was 16th, 23rd and 13th in round one, responded with a ninth to start round two but had finishes of 16th and 32nd after that.
Stenhouse, Jr. did not have a top ten finish in round one and did not have one in round two. His finishes were 25th, 15th, 19th, 13th, 26th and 29th.
The other two drivers without a top ten in round one, but advanced from round two were Carl Edwards in 2014, who made the semifinal round, and Denny Hamlin this year.
With the playoff field cut down to 12 drivers, better results are more important, and we start to see notable drivers not advance from this round, including some race winners.
On five occasions has a driver won in round one and been eliminated in round two. Three became before playoff points, and two are quite notable.
In 2015, Denny Hamlin opened the playoffs with a victory and Matt Kenseth won the next race. Both failed to advance, with Kenseth notably spun at Kansas while leading after contact with Joey Logano. Hamlin was caught in the infamous restart accident at Talladega during a green-white-checkered finish and was classified in 37th. Hamlin had entered Talladega second in the championship, 18 points to the good.
In 2016, Martin Truex, Jr. won the first and third race, but an engine failure in the final race of round two at Talladega eliminated him despite entering sixth and 13 points to the good.
It then happened twice in 2018, and to two Team Penske drivers. Brad Keselowski won the opener at Las Vegas and Ryan Blaney won the inaugural Charlotte roval race. Neither driver picked up a top five finish in round two with each having only one top ten finish, Keselowski sixth at Talladega and Blaney was seventh at Talladega.
Round one results aside, only seven drivers have had a top five in round two and not advanced:
Kyle Busch (2014, two top five finishes)
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (2015)
Denny Hamlin (2015, two top five finishes)
Jamie McMurray (2017)
Kyle Larson (2018)
William Byron (2019)
Clint Bowyer (2020)
The one note for Busch and Hamlin is in both cases a terrible Talladega finish took them out. Busch was third and fifth in the first two races before ending up 40th at Talladega. He was second, 26 points to the good prior. Hamlin was fourth and second before that Talladega result of 37th. Both of these cases also occurred before playoff points.
Other than 2016, at least one driver eliminated in the second round had a top five finish in that round.
For the drivers eliminated in round two, their average finish over those three races is 19.738, but there is one notable outlier and that is Kyle Larson in 2018. Larson's average finish in round two that year was 8.667 with finishes of 11th, third and tenth. He is the only one to have an average finish below ten and not advance.
There are only four other drivers with average finishes below 15th in round two who did not advance:
Kasey Kahne (2014, 14.667)
Ryan Newman (2015, 12.667)
Denny Hamlin (2015, 14.333)
Clint Bowyer (2019, 13.667)
Round Three
This is where we see the difference between a championship four contender and those just on the outside. In this section, we will look at those who did not advance.
There is little margin for error when determining the final four drivers, especially when three spots are reserved for race winners and only one if for the best driver on points. Even with playoff points, with eight drivers left, the advantage shrinks. It is no longer 53 points for the top driver over the cutline, but rather 45 points. That does not seem like much, but it can be large difference.
With eight drivers left, arguably the top eight drivers, there will be multiple top five finishers on the wrong side of the line.
Twenty-one of 28 drivers eliminated in the semifinal round had a top five finish in that three-race set. It would be easier to list those that did not have one.
Carl Edwards (2014)
Kurt Busch (2015)
Jimmie Johnson (2017)
Ryan Blaney (2017)
Kurt Busch (2018)
Chase Elliott (2018)
Chase Elliott (2019)
Surprising, the number of semifinalists eliminated with multiple top five finishes is only four:
Jeff Gordon (2014, two runner-up finishes nonetheless)
Brad Keselowski (2014, a third and a fourth)
Ryan Blaney (2019, a fifth and a third)
Alex Bowman (2020, a third and a fifth)
Gordon is one of six semifinalists with runner-up finishes not to advance to the championship race. He is the only one with multiple runner-up finishes and not to advance. Who are the other five?
Brad Keselowski (2015)
Chase Elliott (2017)
Kevin Harvick (2020)
Martin Truex, Jr. (2020)
Bowman this year became only the fourth driver to finish in the top ten of all three semifinal round races and not advance to the championship race. He was sixth at Martinsville. The others:
Denny Hamlin (2016, third, ninth and seventh)
Ryan Blaney (2019, fifth, eighth and third)
Joey Logano (2019, eighth, fourth and ninth)
The only difference is Bowman became the first driver to average a finish better than fifth in the semifinal round and not advance at 4.667. Seven of 28 drivers averaged a top ten finish with the average finish for a semifinalist being 13.333. Only four semifinalists have average over a 15th place finish:
Joey Logano (2015, 26.667)
Kurt Busch (2016, 15.667)
Chase Elliott (2019, 35.667)
Kurt Busch (2020, 16.667)
This year was a bit different as Kevin Harvick became the third regular season champion not to advance to the championship four, but the first two are a bit odd because they came before playoff points and bonuses for regular season championship results.
The first was Jeff Gordon in 2014 and the other was Harvick in 2016. For the first three seasons, NASCAR was seeding the drivers at the start of the playoffs with three points for each regular season victory, but everyone was level at the start of the subsequent rounds. In fact, despite Gordon and Harvick leading the points after 26 races in each of those seasons, neither started as the "one-seed."
So Harvick is the first regular season championship in this playoff points evolution where points carry round to round and award consistency, but was Harvick's playoffs that bad? The answer is no. Even his semifinal round was not that bad.
Harvick's average finish over nine races was 9.444, third best behind only Bowman at 8.0 and Logano at 8.1. His average finish in the semifinal round was 11.667, not ideal, but equal to Hamlin who did advance. It was really two bad races at Texas and Martinsville, which could not have come at a worse time for Harvick and throw on top of that a runner-up finish at Kansas which can be simply summed up as clean air winning out.
Championship Finalists
No surprise, but to make the final four, you have to be good, borderline exceptional.
Seven drivers have made the final four and not won one of the nine prior playoff races:
Ryan Newman (2014, he didn't win a race at all that season)
Denny Hamlin (2014)
Kyle Busch (2015)
Martin Truex, Jr. (2015)
Kyle Busch (2016)
Martin Truex, Jr. (2018)
Kyle Busch (2019)
In those eight cases, only three drivers had fewer than four victories through 35 races, Newman's winless season, Hamlin had one in 2014 and Truex had one in 2015. All three of those of course came before the implementation of playoff points. Newman remains the only winless driver to make the final four. Along with Hamlin and Truex, the only other driver to make the final four with one victory was Jeff Gordon in 2015 and that victory was at Martinsville, the leadoff race of the semifinal round.
Overall, 12 finalists had fewer than four victories entering the final race of the season. Eight of those 12 came between 2014 and 2016, before playoff points. The four to do it in the last four years were:
Kevin Harvick (2017, two victories)
Brad Keselowski (2017, three victories)
Joey Logano (2018, two victories and won the finale to take the championship)
Joey Logano (2020, three victories)
When it comes to average finish, the finalists are phenomenal. The average finish over the first nine races for a finalist is 9.686. The average finish in the semifinal round is 7.821.
Only one finalist averaged a finish better than fifth over nine races and that was Truex in 2017 at 4.667. Twelve finalists have had an average finish worse than tenth, but the worst was Carl Edwards at 14.888 in 2016.
When it comes to the semifinal round, ten finalists averaged better than a fifth-place finish, with Truex's 2017 season again the best at 2.333 over three races. Only six finalists averaged worse than a tenth-place finish in the semifinal round:
Kevin Harvick (2014, 12.0)
Carl Edwards (2016, 18.667)
Jimmie Johnson (2016, 16.667)
Joey Logano (2018, 13.667)
Denny Hamlin (2019, 11.0)
Denny Hamlin (2020, 11.667)
Of those six, the only one not to win a semifinal race was Hamlin this year.
Harvick had to win the penultimate race. Johnson won at Martinsville in 2016 and Edwards won at Texas, a rain-shortened race. Edwards had finished 36th at Martinsville prior to that Texas victory. Johnson's finishes after Martinsville were 11th and 38th, but with no consequences, so no harm, no foul.
Logano won at Martinsville in 2018 with his bump-and-run on Truex and he was third in the next race before retiring at Phoenix with an accident leaving him in 37th, so again, no harm, no foul.
Hamlin was in a must-win scenario last year at Phoenix after a 28th-place finish at Texas.
With playoff points, it is more important to factor in where each driver stood at the start of the playoffs and at the start of each round.
In 2017, the finalists were Truex, Kyle Busch, Harvick and Keselowski. Here is where each ranked at the start of each round with their playoff points total at the start of each round:
Truex: 1st (53), 1st (59), 1st (69)
Busch: 3rd (29), 2nd (41), 2nd (42)
Harvick: 6th (15), 6th (15), T-4th (17)
Keselowski: 4th (19), 4th (20), 3rd (26)
You will see a pattern in each of the last four seasons as well.
2018
Logano: T-6th (14), T-6th (14), T-5th (15)
Truex: 3rd (35), 3rd (38), 3rd (38)
Harvick: T-1st (50), 2nd (50), 2nd (54)
Busch: T-1st (50), 1st (55), 1st (55)
2019
Busch: 1st (45), 1st (46), 1st (46)
Truex: 3rd (29), 2nd (41), 2nd (42)
Harvick: T-4th (28), 5th (28), 5th (28)
Hamlin: 2nd (30), 3rd (30), 3rd (37)
2020
Elliott: 5th (20), 5th (21), 4th (27)
Keselowski: 3rd (29), 3rd (35), 3rd (35)
Logano: 4th (22), 4th (22), 5th (22)
Hamlin: 2nd (47), 2nd (48), 2nd (54)
Since the invention of playoff points, a finalist has never been ranked worse than sixth at the start of any of the rounds. The fewest playoff points a finalist earned was 15 (Logano 2018) and only one other finalist earned fewer than 20 playoff points (Keselowski 2017 with 17 points). Logano this year became the just the second finalist not to earn an additional playoff point in the first two rounds. The other was Harvick last year.
The average number of playoff points for a finalist at the start of each round is as follows:
Start of first round: 32.1875
Start of second round: 35.1875
Start of third round: 37.9375
Champion
Ultimately, under this format, the championship comes down to one race. There is nothing from the previous 35 races that decides who is the champion. The previous 35 races decide which four drivers get a shot at the championship with nine carrying a little more weight, but none of them ultimately decide who is the champion. Logano, Keselowski and Hamlin cannot look at points lost at say Atlanta or Indianapolis or Kentucky as the reason they are not champion. The only race they can look at is Phoenix. That one result decides the champion regardless of what happened in the previous 35.
Of course, every champion has won the season finale, but only two champions did not win a race in the first nine race of the playoffs:
Kyle Busch (2015)
Kyle Busch (2019)
The only other champion not to have multiple victories in the first nine playoff races was Logano in 2018. This year's champion Elliott was the only finalist this year with multiple victories in the first nine playoff races and his three playoffs victories after his victory in the finale gave him the most over the final ten races.
Elliott won the penultimate race and the finale making him the only the second champion in this playoff-era to end the season with consecutive victories. Harvick did it in 2014. Elliott is the fourth champion to win in semifinal round with the exceptions being Busch's two championships and Truex's title. Elliott is the fourth champion to win a race in at least two rounds prior to the finale and surprisingly, no champion has won a race in each round. In fact, no driver has ever won in each of the first three rounds of the playoffs.
Elliott will be credited as starting on pole position for this Phoenix race, but he had to start at the rear of the field after his car did not pass pre-race inspection twice. Before yesterday, the worst starting position for a champion in the finale was Jimmie Johnson in 14th. The other five champions all started in the top five. The first six championship finales were held at Homestead, and with NASCAR venturing away from qualifying, I am not sure what we can take away from starting position, especially when the top four are going to be gifted the top four spots on the grid.
Since 2014, only twice has the driver that at least had a share of most victories won the championship, Johnson in 2016 and Truex in 2017. That is 28.57% of the seasons.
From 2004 to 2013, it happened four times with Johnson doing it in 2007 and 2009, Stewart in 2011 and Keselowski did it in 2012 though he was tied for most victories with Johnson and Hamlin on five that year.
It should be noted that five of seven champions in the playoff-era had exactly five victories with the exceptions being Truex with eight in 2017 and Logano with three in 2018.
Only twice in the last seven years has the champion had more than 15 top five finishes. Truex had 19 in 2017 and Busch had 17 in 2019. This was the fourth consecutive year where the champion had over 20 top ten finishes after only one of the previous three saw the champion reach 20 top ten finishes.
Stepping back for a moment and looking beyond this playoff-era, Elliott is the fourth different driver to win a championship with Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Johnson are the other Hendrick champions. The only other team to have at least three different drivers win a championship is Joe Gibbs Racing, who did it with Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch.
Hendrick Motorsports has won 13 of the last 26 championships. The next best team in that time period is Gibbs with five championships. Roush Racing, Stewart Haas Racing and Team Penske each have two titles. Robert Yates Racing and Furniture Row Racing, both of which are defunct, split the remaining two championships.
After taking 12 years to win its first championship, the longest Hendrick Motorsports has gone between titles since 1995 is four years and that was from 2002 to 2005! The three-year drought from 2017 to 2019 is the second-longest dry spell for the team in the last quarter of a century!
The only drivers in the last 25 years to win consecutive championships drove for Hendrick with Jeff Gordon's back-to-back in 1997 and 1998 and Johnson's five-year run from 2006 to 2010. In the 25 years before that, there were seven instances of consecutive champions and those seven instances came with four different drivers representing three different teams.
Richard Petty had two sets of consecutive titles driving for his family's team in 1970-71 and 1974-75. Cale Yarborough won three consecutive titles from 1976-78 with Junior Johnson. Then Darrell Waltrip went back-to-back with Junior Johnson in 1981-82. Dale Earnhardt had not one, not two but three sets of consecutive championships, all with Richard Childress Racing in 1986-87, 1990-91 and 1993-94.
A Chevrolet driver won the drivers' championship, but Ford won the manufactures' championship. It is the third time in the last six seasons that the drivers' champion did not drive for the manufactures' champion. That had only happened in twice of the first 11 seasons with the Chase/playoff format. Kurt Busch won in 2004 driving a Ford while Chevrolet took the manufactures' title. Keselowski won the 2012 championship in a Dodge while Chevrolet won another manufactures' title.
With Elliott's championship, we now have five different champions in the last five seasons and in 2021, we could match the record of six consecutive seasons without a repeat champion, which occurred from 1999 to 2004 when Dale Jarrett, Bobby Labonte, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth all won the title.
We have come close in recent seasons. From 2011 to 2015, we had five different champions and then Johnson's seventh broke that trend. From 2014 to 2018, we had five different champions and then Kyle Busch broke it with his second title last year.
The 2021 season will either be chance for Elliott to extend the Hendrick dynasty like Gordon or Johnson before him or perhaps another long-suffering driver can match NASCAR's longest stretch of parity.
Champions From the Weekend
You know about Chase Elliott, but did you know...
Austin Cindric won the NASCAR Grand National Series championship with his victory at Phoenix. It was Cindric's sixth victory of the season.
Sheldon Creed won the NASCAR Truck Series championship with his victory at Phoenix. It was Creed's fifth victory of the season, the most in the series.
René Rast clinched the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship with finishes of second and first at Hockenheim. Vice-champion Nico Müller won the first race of the weekend. It is Rast's third DTM championship in four seasons.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Chase Elliott, Austin Cindric, Sheldon Creed and René Rast but did you know...
Joan Mir won MotoGP's European Grand Prix from Valencia, his first career MotoGP victory and his first victory in three years and ten days since the Moto3 race at Malaysia. Marco Bezzecchi won the Moto2 race, his second victory of the season. Raúl Fernández won the Moto3 race, his first career victory.
The #8 ARTA Honda NSX of Tomoki Nojiri and Nirei Fukuzumi won the Super GT race from Motegi. The #56 Kondō Racing Nissan of Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira won in GT300.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 12 Hours of Sebring concludes the IMSA season.
The 8 Hours of Bahrain concludes the FIA World Endurance Championship season.
The Circuit Paul Ricard 1000km concludes the GT World Challenge Europe season.
The WTCC concludes in Aragón because the updates to Adria were not complete in time.
Formula One returns to Turkey.
MotoGP remains in Valencia for its penultimate round.
Super Formula heads to Autopolis.
