Road to NASCAR Cup playoffs has become more difficult for drivers winless in regular season

The chances of making the NASCAR Cup playoffs without a victory in regular season have decreased significantly since the start of the Next Gen era in 2022.

Only six drivers — an average of two per year — qualified for the playoffs without a regular season win in the past three seasons.

That's compared to 14 drivers — an average of 4.6 per year — who made the playoffs without a regular season win from 2019-21.

NASCAR wanted more of a focus on winning when it created the playoff system. Series officials developed the Gen 7 car, which debuted in 2022, to give more drivers and teams a chance to win.

Both goals have been achieved.

So what does it mean for those who don't win in the regular season? What do they need to do to make the playoffs?

A driver without a win needs to average 27.1 points per race — essentially the equivalent of a 10th-place finish without any stage points —in the regular season to make the playoffs based on data from the past three seasons.

Stage points are critical because no driver averaged a 10th-place finish in the regular season last year. Tyler Reddick had the best average finish in the series at 11.1, followed by Chase Elliott at 11.6.

Last season, 14 of the 16 playoff spots went to drivers with a win in the regular season. Ty Gibbs and Martin Truex Jr. earned the final two spots via points.

This is how close it was:

Gibbs had 702 points in the regular season, Truex had 696 points and Chris Buescher, the first driver outside a playoff spot, had 690 points.

Buescher had the best average finish in the regular season at 13.6, scoring 608 points.

Gibbs was next with an average finish of 14.7, scoring 581 points. Truex followed with an average finish of 17.0, scoring 521 points.

But the difference was stage points.

Truex and Gibbs passed Buescher due to stage points. Truex had 175 stage points. Gibbs had 121. Buescher scored only 82 stage points.

Although Buescher scored 87 more points than Truex based on their finishing positions for each race in the regular season, Truex earned the final playoff spot because he scored 93 more stage points than Buescher.

Now that the Clash is past, the races start to matter. Even next week's Daytona 500 qualifying races. While the winners of those two races do not earn a playoff spot, the top 10 finishers in each race scores points.

The race for playoffs begins now.