NASCAR changed the way its champions are crowned in 2026, bringing back The Chase while stripping away much of the complexity that defined the previous playoff era.
There are no elimination rounds. A regular-season victory no longer guarantees a postseason berth. The championship is not decided by whichever title contender finishes highest in a single season finale.
Instead, NASCAR has returned to a points-driven championship fight built around a straightforward premise: qualify for The Chase, then outscore everybody else over the final 10 races.
With the regular season winding down, here is everything NASCAR fans need to know about how The Chase works.
What Is the NASCAR Chase?
The Chase is NASCAR’s postseason championship format.
For the Cup Series, the first 26 races make up the regular season. Once Race No. 26 is complete, the top-16 drivers in the standings advance to The Chase and compete for the championship across the final 10 races.
The name itself is familiar. NASCAR originally introduced the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup in 2004. The sport eventually moved away from the traditional Chase model and adopted an elimination-based postseason beginning in 2014.
For 2026, NASCAR brought The Chase name and basic philosophy back, but the current system is not simply a copy of the old one. NASCAR redesigned the format around consistency, winning and a championship battle that lasts through the entire postseason.
How Do Drivers Qualify for the NASCAR Chase?
This may be the biggest difference from the system NASCAR used in recent years.
Winning a race does not automatically put a driver into The Chase.
The Cup Series field is determined strictly by the regular-season points standings. After 26 races, the top-16 drivers advance. Everyone outside the top 16 is eliminated from championship contention.
That means a driver can win during the regular season and still miss The Chase if he does not accumulate enough points over the full 26-race schedule.
Conversely, a driver does not need to win a race to qualify. A winless driver who finishes the regular season inside the top 16 in points earns a Chase berth.
The format places far greater importance on an entire season’s body of work rather than allowing one victory to erase months of poor results.
How Many Drivers Make the Chase?
The Chase field differs across NASCAR’s three national series.
The Cup Series has 16 drivers, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has 12, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has 10.
The Cup Series regular season consists of 26 races before its 10-race Chase. NASCAR’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series uses a nine-race Chase, while the Craftsman Truck Series championship is decided over seven Chase races.
How Does the NASCAR Chase Points Reset Work?
Once the Cup Series regular season ends, the 16 Chase drivers do not enter the postseason with identical point totals.
NASCAR reseeds the field based on where each driver finished in the regular-season standings.
The regular-season champion receives the biggest advantage and begins The Chase at 2,100 points, 25 points ahead of the second seed. Second begins with 2,075 and third with 2,065. From there, the gap falls by five points per position.
The complete Cup Series reset is:
- 1st: 2,100 points
- 2nd: 2,075
- 3rd: 2,065
- 4th: 2,060
- 5th: 2,055
- 6th: 2,050
- 7th: 2,045
- 8th: 2,040
- 9th: 2,035
- 10th: 2,030
- 11th: 2,025
- 12th: 2,020
- 13th: 2,015
- 14th: 2,010
- 15th: 2,005
- 16th: 2,000
That means the regular-season champion begins the postseason with a 100-point advantage over the 16th seed.
Just as importantly, this is the only reset.
Once The Chase begins, there are no additional resets between groups of races.
How Are NASCAR Points Awarded During the Chase?
The scoring system used during The Chase is the same basic system NASCAR uses during the regular season.
The major change NASCAR made for 2026 was substantially increasing the reward for winning.
A race winner receives 55 points, compared with 35 for second place. Third earns 34 points, fourth gets 33 and the total continues to decrease by one point per finishing position. Drivers finishing 36th or lower receive one finishing-position point.
That 20-point gap between first and second makes victories considerably more valuable than they were under the previous system.
Stage points also remain part of the championship equation.
The top-10 drivers in each stage score points, with first receiving 10, second receiving nine and the payout declining by one point through 10th place, which earns one.
The Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus also remains in place in 2026. The eligible driver who records the fastest lap during a points-paying race earns one additional championship point.
Every one of those points continues to matter once The Chase begins.
Are There Eliminations During the NASCAR Chase?
No.
This is the other fundamental difference between The Chase and NASCAR’s former playoff system.
All 16 Cup drivers who qualify for The Chase remain in the championship field throughout the final 10 races. There is no Round of 16, Round of 12, Round of 8 or Championship 4.
Drivers can, of course, eventually become mathematically incapable of catching the points leader. But NASCAR does not formally cut competitors from the Chase field after predetermined races.
A disastrous afternoon in the opening Chase race does not automatically end someone’s season. Neither does a single victory guarantee advancement to another round.
Every result simply changes the points standings.
How Is the NASCAR Cup Series Champion Determined?
This part is about as simple as NASCAR could make it.
After the final 10 races, the Chase driver with the most points is the NASCAR Cup Series champion.
There is no separate championship reset before the season finale and no requirement that a title contender win the final race.
The finale is Race No. 10 of the same championship points battle that began when The Chase started.
If one driver has built enough of an advantage, it is therefore possible for the championship to be mathematically decided before the final race. NASCAR does not artificially reset the standings to guarantee multiple drivers enter the finale tied or within striking distance.
Can a Driver Win the NASCAR Championship Without Winning a Race?
Yes.
Because The Chase is ultimately decided by points, there is no rule requiring the champion to win either during the regular season or postseason.
A driver who consistently produces strong finishes, earns stage points and outscores the other Chase contenders could theoretically win the championship without visiting Victory Lane.
NASCAR attempted to balance that possibility by increasing a race victory to 55 points. Winning now carries a 20-point finishing-position advantage over second place, giving drivers a substantial incentive to chase victories rather than simply protect strong finishes.
What Happened to ‘Win and You’re In’?
It’s gone.
Under NASCAR’s previous playoff structure, a regular-season victory generally provided a path into the postseason for an eligible full-time driver, assuming other qualification requirements were met.
That is no longer the championship model.
Race wins remain extremely valuable because of their enhanced 55-point payout, but they do not come with an automatic Chase berth. The only guaranteed route into the Cup Series Chase is finishing among the top 16 in regular-season points after Race 26.
A driver who wins must still perform well enough throughout the rest of the regular season to remain inside the qualifying field.
What Happened to NASCAR Playoff Points?
The old system of accumulating bankable playoff points has also been eliminated.
Under the current Chase structure, regular-season performance is rewarded through the initial postseason seeding instead. The regular-season champion gets the 2,100-point starting position, followed by the descending totals through 16th.
After that reset, the championship becomes one continuous points race.
There is no separate pool of playoff points being carried from round to round because there are no rounds.
How Is the New Chase Different From the Previous NASCAR Playoffs?
The differences are substantial.
Under the previous system, winning could effectively lock a driver into the playoffs, championship contenders were eliminated after each postseason round and four drivers reached the final race with the championship decided by whichever one finished highest.
None of that applies now.
The current format uses regular-season points to select the field, rewards those drivers through postseason seeding and then sends all 16 through the complete 10-race Chase.
That makes the championship less dependent on surviving three-race elimination rounds or producing one perfect race at the end of the year. Instead, a contender must accumulate more points than everyone else across an extended stretch of the schedule.
Why Did NASCAR Bring the Chase Back?
NASCAR’s stated goal was to create a format that better rewarded consistency across the entire season while still placing a premium on winning.
The previous elimination system had produced dramatic moments, but NASCAR officials conducted an extensive review involving drivers, owners, manufacturers, tracks, broadcast partners and fans before settling on the new structure.
The eventual compromise retained a distinct postseason while eliminating much of the complexity surrounding automatic qualification, playoff points, eliminations and the winner-take-all nature of the championship finale.
It also restored something NASCAR officials repeatedly emphasized when announcing the format: every race matters.
There is no opportunity to win early and simply wait for the postseason. There are no resets once The Chase begins to erase a large points deficit. And there is no one-race championship showdown capable of overriding the previous nine Chase races.
Thirty-six races build toward a champion, with the first 26 determining who gets to compete for it and the final 10 determining who ultimately takes the trophy.
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