Ugo Ugochukwu became the second American to win the Macau Grand Prix. MotoGP's season went to the final lap in Barcelona, and it unveiled a new logo. A historic season came to a close in one of the lower ranks. Supercars' season ended a day early at Adelaide with a dead rubber on Sunday. IMSA did some testing. Chip Ganassi Racing is loaning out a few drivers to Meyer Shank Racing for sports car purposes. Alpine will have Mercedes engines come 2026. However, it is not about looking ahead. It is about looking back to last week and the conclusion to the NASCAR season.
Unsatisfying and Complicated
Discontent was noticeable in the days following NASCAR's season finale weekend from Phoenix. It was bubbling long before the green flag waved for the start of the final race. The events of the previous week at Martinsville had left a sour taste in the mouths of many, and the finale was equally as likely to have a tart outcome.
When Joey Logano won the race and claimed his third championship, 2024 became another season trying to justify the results of the season.
For the second consecutive year, the record for fewest top five finishes for a champion in NASCAR's modern era has been reset. Logano had seven. For the second consecutive year, the champion had the worst average finish in NASCAR Cup Series history. Logano's average of 17.111 was over three positions worse than Ryan Blaney's average of 14.0833 last year. Three of the four worst average finishes among Cup champions have come in the last three seasons, and the bottom five have all occurred since the introduction of the elimination format in 2014.
Somebody has to be the worst of the best. There is bound to be a year when good is actually good enough, but in the last few years below-average has been enough to be champion far too often.
That isn't Joey Logano's fault. It is the system. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Regardless of who it was, anyone who had Logano's season and wound up champion would feel unsatisfying, and that is because the final result really did not match what we saw over the nine-month season.
If you have been watching from the start, you know the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season did not have one or two dominant drivers. It had a few periods where different drivers stood on top, but those same drivers would go through spells where results would not go their way.
Kyle Larson won six times, more than any other driver, but he only finished in the top ten in exactly half the races. As often as we celebrated a Larson victories, it felt like we were spending equally as much time wondering how he threw a race away. William Byron started hot, winning three of the first eight races, and then wasn't much of a threat until October. Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell each looked like the best driver for portions of the season and then would have a bad race or two. Denny Hamlin looked good for a moment. There wasn't a clear best driver this season, but at no point over the first 32 races did we think the best was Logano.
At the end of the regular season, Logano had as many finishes outside the top 25 as he did top ten finishes (eight).
Only once in the regular season did Logano have consecutive top ten finishes, a second at Richmond and a sixth at Martinsville.
On two separate occasions, Logano went at least four consecutive races without a top ten finish, including a six-race run that followed his two consecutive top ten finishes in Virginia.
At no point this season did Logano have consecutive top five finishes. His average finish in the regular season was 18.346. The average grid size in the first 26 races was 37.5 cars. Over the regular season, on average, Logano was barely finishing in the top half of the field.
That doesn't scream champion, but cinderella runs exist in sports. Except, the final ten weeks didn't feel like a fairy tale either.
Logano won three playoff races, credit to him, but those were his only top five finish finishes all playoffs. He had two other top ten finishes. He had as many finishes 28th or worse as he did victories in the final ten races.
Again, not Logano's fault, but the system's.
Anyone who had that kind of regular season combined with that kind of postseason was not going to feel like a champion that truly represented the events of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
It has become common to compare NASCAR to the stick-and-ball sports and the outcomes of those seasons, but motorsports does not compare, and we know this!
Thirty-three drivers competed in all 36 races this season. Erik Jones missed two races due to a back injury, but 34 drivers compete in at least 94% of the races. The average grid size over the entire season was 37.777 cars. We had 36 examples of these drivers competing against each other. In no stick-and-ball sport do the same teams compete against one another 36 times a year. Hell, even baseball had divisional opponents only facing each other 18 times a year until recently.
Playoffs exist in other sports due to schedule imbalance, size of the leagues and geography. It is a 68-team NCAA men's basketball tournament because there are 351 teams at the Division I level. It is not feasible for all 351 teams to play against one another. A tournament with the best teams from conferences largely determined by region is the best way to determine who is best. Even the Cinderellas are a wicked step-sister somewhere. The Florida Atlantic team that made the Final Four two years ago was still a 31-3 team entering the tournament. It won far more than it lost.
The best teams don't always win, but the winner at least feels fitting. The 2007 New England Patriots may have lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, ending its perfect season, but the New York Giants still went 10-6, one of only 11 teams to win at least ten games that season. The New England Patriots didn't lose the Super Bowl to a 6-10 team that entered the Super Bowl on a three-game losing streak and had lost seven of the previous eight games.
The best might not always win, but more times than not the champion should at least feel fitting, and that has not been the case for the last few seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series. It has become increasingly too common.
The ten-race "Chase" format might have been equally as untraditional as the current elimination format, but the champion after those ten races at least felt more satisfying. None of them felt fortunate. None felt lucky. It was hard to be consistent over ten races, but more importantly, if you made the Chase, whether it be a ten-driver or 12-driver field, it at least felt like you earned your spot. There was a clear bottom you had to be above to make the playoffs.
Tony Stewart didn't have the greatest regular season in 2011, but he at least earned that spot by finishing ninth in points over 26 races. A victory at Talladega or in the Brickyard 400 didn't make up for a regular season with only four top five finishes and 11 finishes outside the top twenty. Playoffs spots required being at your top over 26 races. One day in the sun wasn't going to erase 25 days of rain.
Once Stewart made the playoffs, his performance actually improved. He won five of ten races. He ended the season with four consecutive top five finishes and six consecutive top ten finishes. Stewart reached the threshold to make the playoffs and then in the playoffs he performed better than everybody else. With this current system, we can see drivers be bum-average for 26 races and remain mostly bum-average for the playoffs, but timely victories can lead to a championship, and that is not a good thing.
Where can NASCAR go from here? I think championship-winning crew chief Cole Pearn might have had the best idea.
Go off YTD point standings all year, top 16 get in playoffs. If you win in a round you advance, the remaining spots are filled by the YTD point standings that are being added to with each playoff race. Very high chance the best cars all make the last race, winner take all.
— Cole Pearn (@colepearn) November 13, 2024
Stop with the "win-and-your-in" nonsense. It was bad enough Harrison Burton made the playoffs with top ten finishes, and we nearly had Austin Dillon also make the playoffs with three top ten finishes and an average finish of 22.884 over 26 races. It is ok to set a floor for the playoff field and not have it be a floating line that can fall on rock-bottom.
If you want to make playoff races matter more, fine, have the winners of each race in a playoff round advance. Make those victories carry more weight, but don't reset the points. Don't have the hocus pocus junk that is playoff points be what separate drivers after a round.
Take the top 16 after 26 races and add 1,000 to their points total, but the 274-point gap between Tyler Reddick in first and Kyle Busch in 16th would remain. Nine spots in the second round are still guaranteed to decided on points, but for Kyle Busch in 16th, he would still be 116 points outside the top nine. He would have some work to do to advance without a victory. A victory still gets him through, and his best strategy might be to swing for the fences over three weeks.
Not resetting the points would be more rewarding for the best drivers over the entire season. It means they are more likely to advance on points each round but they aren't going to take it easy because there will be a constant fight to be the best in points over the entire season. That driver will be guaranteed a spot in the final four for the final race. Think about that. The best in points after 35 races will at least have a shot at the championship. Isn't that what we at least want? The top drivers aren't going to be dogging it for nine weeks. That competition will remain high while there will be drivers who know overcoming 116 points in three races will not happen and victory is their only realistic chance of advancing to the next round.
As for those who don't want points racing in the regular season and want drivers incentivized to win the most races possible, increase the points total for a victory. Make it 100 points to win a race and keep second place worth 35 points. NASCAR's biggest issue regardless of the points system is not how much a victory is worth, but rather proportionally how much second and third and so on are worth. If second pays 87.5% the amount of points as a victory then second place isn't that bad.
It is worth ,pre with stage points. A driver can win the race and not have the most points. That should never be the case. Make it so even if a driver wins both stages and finishes second, at best that is worth 55% of a victory. That is a simple change that rewards winning. The more wins you have, the more likely you will make the playoffs. Winning one race and averaging a 22nd-place finish will likely not get you a playoff spot, but winning one-race with an average of 15th might get you an extra two or three spots over drivers that do not win in the regular season.
NASCAR is too far gone to go back to where it was, but it can make some simple changes to at least have a more satisfying champion, and one that at least feels representative of the entire season. It can have an uncomplicated system with an established bottom that ensures the best over an entire season are competing for a championship and not ten good drivers with six guys that fell ass backward into a victory.
If there is one thing we know from NASCAR is it will tinker when things are bad in hopes of making it better. We have enough evidence from 20-plus years of playoff formats to know what works and what doesn't work. The current structure is the best it has been in combining consistent results over the entire season and elevating the status of a race victory. It can be better and NASCAR cannot be afraid to trade some of the manufactured drama for sporting integrity.
Champions From the Weekend
Jorge Martín clinched the MotoGP championship with a third-place finish in Barcelona.
Will Brown clnched the Supercars championship with a runner-up finish in the first race from Adelaide.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Ugo Ugochukwu, but did you know...
Francesco Bagnaia won the Solidarity Grand Prix of barcelona and the sprint race. Arón Can't won the Moto2 race, his fourth victory of the season. David Alonso won the Moto3 race, his seventh consecutive victory and his 14th victory of the season.
Broc Feeney and Will Brown split the Supercars races from Adelaide.
Maro Engel won the FIA GT World Cup from Macau. Thed Björk and Dušan Borkovič split the Guia Race.
Coming Up This Weekend
Fomrula One hopes to avoid the mayhem in Las Vegas thisyear.
Jeddah hosts the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance cup finale.
Rally Japan closes out the World Rally Championship season.
