We are closing out this week with a final look back at the 2025 NASCAR season through the lense of predictions made just over ten months ago. In a year that saw two outstanding performances in the lower divisions with a Cup season that was rather balanced, we had a fine season and everyone is unsatisfied. that is kind of what NASCAR is after a quarter of the 21st century. Change is coming. Whether that shapes up to be what is desired will be found out soon enough. Until then, here are how a dozen predictions played out for this season.
1. Team Penske will not have a driver make the final four in the Cup Series
Correct!
The magic did not continue into 2025 as Team Penske was unable to extend its streak of consecutive Cup championships to four, though it had a good chance of at least having a contender.
Both Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano made the semifinal round, and each driver was one victory away from being a finalist and flipping this prediction to incorrect, however neither could win nor could either score enough points to take the one spot reserved for a non-winner.
This was a year where Blaney had a good argument that he could have been champion or at least been in the top four. Blaney had three victories in the first 35 races. The only drivers with more victories prior to the finale were Denny Hamlin, Shane van Gisbergen and Christopher Bell. Blaney picked up his fourth victory in the finale.
Logano had another rather underwhelming season. One top ten finish in the first ten races and then he won the 11th race at Texas to get a playoff spot. He had three top five finishes in the regular season, and he was 12th in points. Then Logano had four top five finishes in the playoffs and was suddenly a threat. But it wasn't enough.
2. There will be at least two occasions where a driver wins consecutive races
Correct!
We got this one taken care of early. It only took three races to have a driver win consecutive events in the 2025 season. Christopher Bell won the second race of the season from Atlanta. Then he won Austin. For good measure, he won three consecutive races and took the checkered flag first at Phoenix.
Part one, done.
Part two, Denny Hamlin won the seventh race of the season at Martinsville only to follow that up with a victory at Darlington. Prediction achieved in two months of racing.
And just for the hell of it, there was a third driver to win consecutive races in 2025. Shane van Gisbergen won at Chicago and Sonoma in July.
3. At least three non-playoff drivers in 2024 will have clinched a playoff spot within the first 13 races of 2025
Incorrect!
This one kind of hinged on whether or not Shane van Gisbergen won the third race of the season from Austin. Van Gisbergen didn't, but Josh Berry won the fifth race of the season at Las Vegas, and this put Berry into the playoffs.
But Berry was the only non-playoff driver from 2024 to win one of the first 13 races in 2025. There were a few close calls Carson Hocevar was second in the second race of the season from Atlanta. Even if Berry did not win at Las Vegas, Daniel Suárez was second and Ryan Preece was third. Either of those drivers would have contributed to this prediction. Michael McDowell was leading with five laps to go at Texas before Joey Logano passed him and then McDowell spun in turn two.
This prediction came up short.
4. Josh Berry will be the best sophomore driver in the championship
Correct!
As we covered above, Berry won the fifth race of the season from Las Vegas and that put Berry into the playoffs. That put the pressure on the rest of the sophomore field to be the best in class, and by the rest of the sophomore field, I mean Carson Hocevar. It was Berry vs. Hocevar.
Hocevar gave it his all, and he nearly had full control of this battle with a runner-up at Atlanta. Hocevar had another runner-up result at Nashville, but he did not do enough to make the playoffs. That meant Berry could finish no worse than 16th, where he did finish, and Hocevar could finish no better than 17th.
5. Kyle Larson will have at least one stretch with five consecutive top ten finishes
Incorrect!
In 2024, Larson never had more than two consecutive top ten finishes, but he had not had a streak of five consecutive top ten finishes since 2021, his first championship season. Guess what happened in 2025?
On three separate occasions, Larson had four-race top ten finish streaks, but he never got to five!
The first one happened early. Over the fourth through seventh race of the season, Larson finished third, ninth, first and fifth at Phoenix, Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville respectively. What happened in the next race? Suspension issues took him out early at Darlington and he was 37th.
But don't worry! Because immediately after Darlington Larson went on to finish first, second, fourth and first. That is looking good. What happened next? He was 37th in the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte after an accident.
Then the old Larson returned. He did not have a more than two consecutive top ten finishes for the rest of the regular season. In the playoffs, he went on a little run.
At Loudon, he was seventh. At Kansas, he was sixth. At Charlotte, he was second on the roval. In Las Vegas, he was second again. What happened next? Larson ran out of fuel on the final lap at Talladega was running in the top five to finish 26th.
That was the last shot because there were only two more races in the 2025 season. He could not get five consecutive top five finishes in the final two races. Of course, Larson went on to finish fifth and third in those races.
6. Shane van Gisbergen will end the season with at least ten playoff points
Correct!
I think we all felt good that van Gisbergen could win at least two road course races. At worst, he would win one road course race and then have a bunch of road course races where he was competitive, win some stages, but shenanigans would keep him from victory.
Van Gisbergen won five of six road course races. He had 22 playoff points in the regular season alone. With another victory and another stage victory, he had 28 playoff points at the end of the season.
7. The finalists in NASCAR's in-season tournament will both be ranked in the top ten in points entering Indianapolis
Wrong!
The inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge was a mess from the very first race. With Atlanta kicking off proceedings, the tournament saw three of the top four seeds eliminated in the first round. Six of the quarterfinalists were seeded outside the top ten.
The final ended up being Tyler Dillon versus Ty Gibbs. This wound up being the 32-seed vs. the 6-seed. Gibbs won the tournament with a finish of 21st over Dillon in 28th after Dillon had issues at Indianapolis and was never really competitive.
Gibbs and Dillon were 16th and 30th respectively in points entering the final. Neither of those positions are in the top ten. Swing and a miss.
8. Front Row Motorsports will win no more than two pole positions
Correct!
Zane Smith won Front Row Motorsports only pole position at Talladega in April. Outside of that, Smith never started in the top five for another Cup race in 2025. Todd Gilliland's only top five starting position of the season was fifth in the second race of the season from Atlanta.
9. At least one driver in NASCAR's second division will have at least five victories
Correct!
At least one driver did win at least five races. In fact, it was only one driver who won at least five races as Connor Zilisch won ten times. The next closest driver was Austin Hill on four.
Despite winning ten times, Zilisch was not champion, and for the 16th consecutive season the driver with the most victories did not win the championship in NASCAR's second division.
10. Sheldon Creed will have more victories than runner-up finishes
Incorrect!
For this prediction to be correct, Creed needed to win at least one race. Creed did not win one race, so it had no prayer of being correct. Creed did have two runner-up finishes, at Martinsville in April and Bristol in September. Three victories was going to be asking a lot for this prediction to be correct.
It is still remarkable that Creed has 15 runner-up finishes at NASCAR's second level and zero victories. He only has 35 career top five finishes. Over 42% is in one specific position and another accounts for 0%.
To give you an idea of the rest of the break down, Creed has six finishes of third, six finishes of fourth, and eight finishes of fifth. Those are proportions of 17.142%, 17.142% and 22.857%. Just based on math, he should have about seven finishes at each position for equal distribution, and yet he has finished second over 40% of the time he has finished in the top five, but never finished first!
Staggering!
Brandon Jones won twice this season, and Jones has won seven times over 11 seasons in the series. Creed cannot have one race fall his way? Jones has 48 top five finishes in his career and only ten of those have been runner-up finishes. In combined first and second-place finishes, Jones has only two more than Creed and Jones has made 335 starts at this level, 199 more than Creed, and Creed still has zero victories!
11. Corey Heim wins at least nine races in NASCAR national series competition
Correct!
Not only did Heim win at least nine times in NASCAR national series competition, he won 12 times in the Truck Series to set a single-season record for victories. It was the greatest Truck Series season we have ever seen.
Heim did compete in the other two national series, but he didn't win in either of then. He did finish eighth at Bristol in the spring race for NASCAR's second division, his third and final start at that level in 2025. Heim was then sixth in the Bristol Cup race in September.
12. One driver wins a race in all three national touring series
Correct!
With Heim winning nearly half the Truck races in 2025, it was going to be hard for any driver to achieve this, but Kyle Larson exists, and he killed two birds with one stone at Homestead. He won the Truck race on Friday night and then won the Cup race on Sunday. The victory to cap off this prediction as being correct came a month later when he won in the second division at Bristol.
Eight-for-12!
That is more like it! Even a few that were incorrect were close to happening. We didn't even mention this was a season where none of the 94 races (98 if you include four exhibition races) in the national series were rain-delayed. That hasn't happened since 1994, and that was a year before the Truck Series began competition. I sense a slight market correction in the future.
