NASCAR
Can Anyone else Cement Themselves as Cup Championship Contenders in 2025 Regular Season?
One month remains in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season. With four races left before the Playoff onslaught, three coveted spots are still vacant. The drivers currently occupying these provisional postseason berths represent three of the top teams in the sport and perfectly encapsulate all three manufacturers. Can any of them assert themselves into championship discussions with a breakout win over the next four weeks? Iowa, Watkins Glen, Richmond, and Daytona will all ultimately decide these drivers’ fates. Here’s a regular season shakedown for the trio of drivers looking to stay above the Playoff cut line.
Tyler Reddick
Last year’s Regular Season Champion, 2025 has been a bit more trying for Tyler Reddick. The 23XI Racing driver hasn’t been worse than seventh in points all season, but has yet to show true winning speed. Holding steady with an impressive 138-point cushion, Reddick is likely the only one not sweating about their Playoff position. As Reddick recently explained at Indianapolis, however, this team’s ceiling is far higher than merely getting into the 16-man dance.
“Honestly for us, making the Playoffs is the minimum requirement,” Reddick said. “This team, the performance we bring to the race track, whether it’s our pit crew, our cars, or how we strategize the race. For us, yeah, it’s crazy to even think we’re worried about just making the Playoffs. To be in the Playoffs, you have to make it. But for us it’s more so about ‘okay, we’re in it, great,’ but we need Playoff points, all these things just doesn’t necessarily work out. So ultimately, that means that when it does get started, we’re just going to have to run you know 20 or 30 spots better than some of the guys that were around each round. We’re kind of asking for some help along the way too, and some strong teams making mistakes. So I don’t love the spot we’re in for that reason. Feel good about making the Playoffs, but for me and this team, it’s not about just making the Playoffs, it’s about going far in the Playoffs. It’s about making it to the Championship 4 and competing for championships. That’s what it’s about.”
“Unfortunately, when those opportunities have been there (to win), we haven’t executed. We’ve made a mistake, we’ve done something along the way that either makes that much more difficult to win or takes out of it. So that’s just kind of the name of the game. These races and teams that don’t make the mistakes. Even this past weekend in Dover, I was extremely strong and made a couple mistakes along the way. That’s just that’s just kind of how it goes. With how close the cars are and how good the competition is. With how close everything is, those mistakes hurt you so much more. It’s just extremely important to go out there do your job and execute.”
When handicapping Reddick over the next four weeks, none of his stats particularly stand out. His best statistical upcoming track is Watkins Glen, where driver No. 45 has three top-10s in four starts. Only two laps led in this span though prove that the New York circuit is far from his best road course. This race will likely also be dominated by Shane van Gisbergen, requiring absolute perfection to beat the road racing ace. Reddick is likewise in the most comfortable position out of this trio, so a win is far from necessary for this team.
Currently only having one lone Playoff point though, Reddick’s low seeding may be a death knell before the postseason even begins. If the 45 team is 0-26 when the Playoffs start, they may be facing a must-win scenario out of the gate. A Herculean effort like Homestead last fall may be needed just to get the 45 team into the Round of 12.
Alex Bowman
Perhaps the bubble driver with the most recent momentum is Alex Bowman. Four top-10s in the last five weeks have seen the Hendrick No. 48 vault back up to ninth in points. Bowman currently holds a 63-point edge over the cut line, with this gap steadily growing thanks to this run of consistency. Team 48 was as high as third in the standings at one point this season. They have spent the summer months methodically clawing back lost ground.
“Just trying to be on the right side of things,” Bowman said. “Obviously a win would solve all of our problems, but we’re back up to ninth in points. You know, the last month or so, we’ve been doing a lot of the right things. Just glad to have some progress in the right direction.”
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think we were in a very good spot points wise just with, you know, the last couple months. How things have gone, some of our own doings, some of my doings, some kind of out of our control. We’ve just bled a lot of points that we didn’t need to bleed. I think, obviously, winning solves all of that, but I really just gonna focus on doing the best we can each and every week. It’s not like there’s a magic button to push, right? It’s just hard work. There’s been stretches this year that we’ve been planning capable of winning, and there’s been stretches this year that we struggled. So just got to see how it goes.”
“Yeah, I mean honestly like stuff got bad there for a bit, but there’s a lot of stuff out of our control. And then I crashed for a couple weeks. Like other than that, we’ve been really good. So yeah, I think the team’s doing a really good job. If we came [to Dover] and struggled, I’d be like, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ Like, this is my favorite racetrack. Blake [Harris, crew chief] knows exactly what I need to be successful here. Hendrick cars are always unbelievable here. So, yeah, it was a good showing for us, but, we just got to keep digging.”
Two banner third-place results in Atlanta and Dover prove that this team can run with the best when all factors line up. Bowman is the only bubble driver who had a top-10 in Iowa (eighth), has a 2021 Richmond victory, and was Daytona 500 runner-up in 2024. Watkins Glen is Bowman’s only blemish on the upcoming schedule, where he has no finish better than 14th. Barring any new winner, another couple of top-10s should keep Bowman above water for another Playoff showing.
This 48 team has shown an uncanny Hendrick-esque ability to turn things on for the postseason. While his three teammates battle for the regular season title, Bowman should not be overlooked as a title threat.
Chris Buescher
Possibly the biggest snake in the grass wildcard man left on the Playoff bubble is Chris Buescher. The RFK Racing driver may currently be the last one in by 42 points. However, Buescher boasts recent victories at three of the next four tracks. If not for a cut tire at Iowa, Buescher may have another win there as well. Buescher’s Playoff aspirations took a hit earlier this season with a 60-point penalty after Kansas. Driver 17 recently said he’s moved onward past this speed bump and is looking ahead to chasing down wins.
“I mean honestly [no penalty] would have put us in in a better spot, you know,” Buescher said. “With the way our season’s going. Kind of like we talked about at the beginning of the year, got to win races to get it done, right? And yeah, we’re in a decent spot on the Playoff cut, but there’s too much racing left. Um you know, [four] races and the thought of having [a few] new winners, it’s certainly not out the window. I firmly believe we can be one of those. I really like the tracks we got coming up. So yeah, it’s a lot of great opportunity for us to be one of those and to lock ourselves in. But yeah, I mean it’s certainly part of our season, right? You don’t want those things to happen and they can obviously set you back. Fortunately we had the speed beforehand, we didn’t lose any speed afterwards. It didn’t affect anything for our on-track performance. Just kicked us back a little bit.”
“Really [I like our chances] all of them. But Watkins Glen, knowing the speed we had there last season, it’s a big wave of optimism going into what we’ve got right ahead of us. Iowa, too. I mean, we were up front when we had a tire go down there. So, all those things considered, we’ve got great racetracks ahead of us. I’m not nervous about not being competitive at any of them. I’m excited for the opportunity to win one of these things or two of them. It’s not a far-fetched goal for us, I don’t think.”
“We’ve been really good for a long time, for many months at this point. We’ve definitely been in the hunt and just haven’t quite sealed the deal and gotten all the details correct on the same weekend. So, I guess I can’t speak for others and know where their minds are at, but I’d say we definitely feel like we’re in the talks and we’re not someone that we think would be counted out in all the discussions as we look at the next [four] weeks. The rest of the drivers and teams that are thinking about people that haven’t won races this year yet. I’d say we’re probably pretty high up on that list for a lot of teams.”
“We’re really close, right? We are basically one or two small steps away. It varies a little bit week-to-week, I’d say. So, no, it’s not just one thing that we think we can turn a knob and be where we need to. That being said, some of it comes down to some execution things. We’ve had everything right and just needed to do a better job, whether that’s me and being mistake-free all weekend, if that’s better restarts for myself, whether having strategy work out a little better for us, or just quicker racecars. Whatever it may be we’ve had a lot of these things clicking. Just getting them all together at the same time is hard, and it’s supposed to be. So we’re just right there at it and we just need to get it all put together on the same weekend.”
42 points may seem like an almost insurmountable gap for Buescher’s competition below the cut line. Any new winner over the next four weeks though will put the 17 on the outside looking in. This exact situation happened last year, with back-to-back upset winners to close out the regular season. Confidence remains sky-high for another victorious outing with RFK Racing, though. In short, the regular season closes out with some of Buescher’s best tracks on the circuit. An apparent murderer’s row of races for Buescher could easily see the Texan join the 2025 win club.
Next Gen era stats say that we are bound to see at least one new winner in this final regular season stretch. Thanks to parity and depth of field both being at all-time highs, anyone within the top 30 can justifiably find their way to victory lane. Capping off the Playoff push at the ultimate wildcard track of Daytona only adds to this drama and intrigue, as seen last season. Each of the three aforementioned drivers have shown glimpses of championship potential this season. Alas, they will all see sleepless nights for the next month unless they manage to find one of the next four trophies. Playoff drama is about to be pegged over the next four weeks with deciding the last three contenders.
Written by Peter Stratta
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