The NASCAR championship format has once again come under scrutiny from the fraternity as the sport heads into this weekend at Darlington Raceway. After seven races in the 2025 season have been concluded, Hendrick Motorsports’ four entries sit atop the regular season driver standings table heading into the throwback weekend at ‘The Lady in Black.’
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William Byron, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, and Alex Bowman claim the 1-2-3-5 spots, respectively, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell sitting in fourth place. Despite having three consecutive wins to his name so far this year, fans of the sport were left perplexed by how Bell only sat in P4, level with HMS’ Alex Bowman, who has only one top-5 finish and no visits to victory lane.
Sitting just above Bell, Elliott’s numbers also do not boast the best performance either, with the Dawsonville, Georgia native claiming two top-5 finishes so far, yet sitting three points above the #20 Toyota Camry XSE driver.
Fans of stock car racing did not take kindly to this metric, which in a way highlighted the Playoff format’s discrepancies. Despite Bell being locked into the playoffs, his regular season championship chances are no better than P4 since the focus of the points system is only towards drivers winning their way into the postseason.
Alluding to the same confusing metrics, one fan stated the obvious, “This really doesn’t make sense with Bell having 3 wins.” Another fan chimed in with their opinion, writing, “And the guy who has won three races in the first seven races and finished in the top 5 of those 4 times is 4th in the standings. Right then.”
After seven races, @TeamHendrick sits 1-2-3-5 in the standings. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/M7uC5NT1ei
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 31, 2025
One follower was ready to look past his HMS alliance and take an objective approach to the points system, writing, “This point system sucks if Bell is not in first and I’m a Hendrick fan.”
“Bell has 3 wins out of 7 and is 4th, please re-do the entire system,” quipped yet another follower, asking NASCAR to rethink what has been a controversial championship format, to say the least.
Meanwhile, the sport prepares to go live once again from Darlington Raceway this weekend, with drivers and teams ready with their throwback paint schemes in honor of stock car racing’s rich and storied past. The Goodyear 400 goes live on Sunday, April 6, 2025. Fans can watch the race broadcast live on FS1 (Fox Sports) as the green flag drops at 3:00 pm ET.
