The NASCAR Cup Series returns from a rare midseason weekend off at Iowa Speedway on Sunday with four races left to settle 12 of the 16 Chase places, and with the safety net drivers have leaned on for a decade removed.
There is no more win-and-in. The top 16 in points make the postseason, full stop, which means a driver sitting outside the cut cannot simply go and win at Richmond or Daytona to save a season. With 76 points available per race, there are 304 still on the table across Iowa, Richmond, New Hampshire and Daytona.
Only four drivers are locked in: Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney and Ty Gibbs, who clinched at Indianapolis by scoring in both stages and leading 46 laps on the way to 12th.
Hamlin leads the standings on 886 points, 84 clear of Reddick, and heads into August with the No. 1 seed in view and an 18-start Brickyard 400 drought still unresolved after another top five. At 45 he has been asked repeatedly about how much longer he intends to keep going.
"I haven't really thought too much about the future," Hamlin said at Indianapolis when the subject of retiring after next season came up. "Obviously, Joe Gibbs Racing has good plans set in place and whatnot. So, no, I haven't put any more thought into or second thoughts or anything like that. So, it's just really riding the wave of week to week right now and continue trying to get more wins."
The break landed well for several contenders who needed it. Blaney's run of 11 straight top-11 finishes ended when late contact with John Hunter Nemechek put him into the Turn 3 wall at Indy, a 26th-place result that cost him the $1 million In-Season Challenge to Todd Gilliland and, on the numbers, probably the top seed. He is 120 points behind Hamlin.
Two former champions are in worse shape. Chase Elliott has finished outside the top 10 in eight consecutive races and was 37th at the Brickyard. Defending champion Kyle Larson was last in the 39-car field after a flat left rear pitched him into the wall, stretching his winless run to 46 races and giving him three finishes of 34th or worse in the past four events. Larson has slipped to eighth, Elliott is sixth.
Elliott is not treating any of it as settled.
"Storylines can change quick as we all know," he said. "So three weeks of running good and y'all will be talking about how these guys are championship favorites."
The genuine tension is further down. Shane van Gisbergen sits 15th with a 57-point buffer, Austin Cindric 16th and 38 points to the good. Ryan Preece is the first man out, 38 points adrift, with Erik Jones at minus 44, Brad Keselowski minus 50 and Michael McDowell minus 76.
Preece at least likes where the season finishes. Three of the four remaining venues are short tracks, and Iowa's 7/8-mile is a place he has gone well.
"I feel confident because I've had success at Iowa. I've had success at New Hampshire and Richmond as well. Short tracks are my thing," Preece said. "The caution at North Wilkesboro fell and luck was on our side with some things, but it also kind of lit a fire that hey, let's go to the simulator and try to work through some things. What can I change from my driving style for this tire, so it's everybody on our team trying to find some speed because even though there are four races left, I don't go down until it's done. I'll keep swinging."
Keselowski has history at Iowa too, with third and 10th in the two Cup races run there and three wins in NASCAR's second-tier series. Blaney won the inaugural Cup race at the track in 2024, leading 201 of 350 laps and beating Penske team-mate Joey Logano after a restart with 84 laps to go. Logano, fresh from ending a 45-race drought at North Wilkesboro and third at Indianapolis, sits 13th and 65 points above the cut.
The middle of the grid is not as safe as it looks. Only 29 points separate Christopher Bell in 10th from Carson Hocevar in fifth, and Bubba Wallace lost nine points to the cut with a 28th at Indianapolis, leaving him 60 clear.
Practice will be extended from 25 to 50 minutes at Richmond and New Hampshire. The Iowa Corn 350 starts at 3:30pm ET on Sunday.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/nascars-no-win-and-in-rule-turns-the-bubble-into-a-points-grind). Visit for full coverage.*