Playoff Bubble Drivers Post Richmond

With Chris Buescher winning Richmond, no new drivers have come into the Playoff conversation following the Cook-Out 400. That leaves one of the tightest Playoff bubble battles in years!

Credit: RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - JULY 29: Bubba Wallace, driver of the #23 McDonald's Toyota, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway on July 29, 2023 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Following the Cook-Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, the Playoff picture didn't change much. However, what did was each of these driver's points as they left the Action Track in Virginia. 

Chris Buescher    Locked

Coming into the race at Richmond, Buescher was firmly into the Playoffs on points. 111 above the cutline to be exact. His race win however locks him into the 2023 Cup Series Playoff run where he now sits as the 11th seed after leading 88 laps. 

Kevin Harvick      +182

Harv had a solid race at Richmond finishing P.10 and scoring 6 Stage Points in Stage 1. Harvick has sat locked into the top spot of all non-winning drivers for a few weeks now. Harvick leaves Virginia adding a further 19 points to his cushion. He is essentially locked in as it would take 5 new winners in 4 races to bump him.

Brad Keselowski  +151

Bad Brad came into Richmond safely 122 points above the cutline. Brad won Stage 2 scoring a total of 12 Stage points and the all-important 2nd Playoff Point of the season for himself. Brad led 102 laps at Richmond and added 29 points to his cushion. Along with Harvick, he is all but locked into the playoffs at this point 

Bubba Wallace     +54

Bubba is a great short-track racer, and that really showed this weekend leading a career-high 80 laps on the day and scoring a season-high 16 Stage Points. His fantastic day ended once again on Pit Lane where the No. 23 team had issues on the right side of the car and a 2 tire stop later in the day held him back outside of the Top-10 with a still respectable 12th place finish. He came into Richmond at +27 and leaves +54. His Playoff hopes can go away quickly as in 2 weeks we go to 2 road courses in a row. Tracks that Bubba admits are his worst. 

Michael McDowell  +18

McDowell is having a spectacular season in 2023, he came into Virginia +17 over the cutline but had one of the slowest days for any driver this high on the list. Finishing P. 22 despite leading 9 laps during pit cycles, McDowell scored 0 Stage points and was never really a factor for any. Despite this, he leaves Richmond +1 point higher over that line. 

Ty Gibbs               -18

Rookie Ty Gibbs is having a pretty decent rookie season, he even scored his first career Top-5 at Pocono two weekends ago. Ty had a great points day at Richmond going from -28 points behind the cutline to -18 scoring 3 Stage points and finishing P. 15. His saving grace was the horrible days posted by Suarez and Allmendinger. 

AJ Allmendinger   -22

AJ had a questionable call this weekend, skipping practice, and qualifying at Richmond where he sat only -17 points behind the cutline and instead ran the Xfinity race at Road America. Early on, AJ seemed like he was going to make a day out of it only to finish P. 27. Richmond was his worst finish since Talladega earlier in the year. Scoring no Stage Points, he leaves Richmond -22 from the cutline. 

Daniel Suarez       -34

Suarez has not really had a great season in 2023, with 14 finishes outside the Top-15 in 22 races. In a season we all expected to see a new and improved Suarez, Daniel came into Richmond -23 from the cutline only to have trouble all race long finishing P. 33, 4 laps down leaving 11 points further than he came in. 

Chase Elliott        -40

Coming in 56 points back and out of this conversation, Elliott brought the 9 team a pretty solid run at Richmond. Making up 16 points in a single race, this was his best points day in a while. Elliott scored 7 Stage Points and finishing P. 13, Elliott passed teammate Alex Bowman to get into the bubble by just 2 points. Elliott only has 4 races remaining to make up that 40-point deficit created by missing 6 races to injury and essentially 2 races due to poor decisions. Not a must-win, but he's close.

By: Tom Luttermoser