Christopher Bell won his third race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but he wasn’t the big winner of the USA Today 301.
Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing won two races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend, the first on Saturday in the Xfinity Series and the second on Sunday in the Cup Series.
Bell’s Cup Series victory was his third of the season, tying him for the series lead with teammate Denny Hamlin and Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron. The triumph also propelled him to sixth place in the point rankings.
These four drivers are the only four to have multiple victories during the first 18 races of the 2024 season, and as such, they are the only four drivers who are theoretically locked into the four-round, ten-race playoffs.
The 16 playoff slots are awarded to the regular season winner, regardless of whether he wins a race, as well as the top 15 drivers in victories. In the 26-race regular season, only 13 drivers may win multiple races, hence those four are safe.
However, there may be more than 16 total winners, in which case the tiebreaker used to determine which single-race winners are eligible and which are not would become points.
Christopher Bell was not the biggest winner in New Hampshire.
Six drivers have won a race this year, and there are eight races left on the regular season calendar, which means there may be up to 18 victors by the time the playoffs begin.
The single-race winners include Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports, Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing, Ryan Blaney of Team Penske, and Brad Keselowski of RFK Racing, all of whom are in the top ten in the point standings and can be regarded comfortably locked into the postseason.
But Trackhouse Racing Team’s Daniel Suarez and Team Penske’s Austin Cindric sit in 18th and 21st place, respectively, so they were both more than willing to accept another trip to victory lane for Bell, considering the fact that the alternative was having an 11th different winner emerge.
Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Josh Berry, both of whom are winless and not currently in the provisional 16-driver playoff picture, finished the race in second and third place, respectively. Winless Chris Buescher of RFK Racing finished in fifth, so the USA Today 301 was relatively close to producing a new winner.
Instead, there is one less opportunity for that 10-winner tally to grow before the regular season comes to an end, which gives Suarez and Cindric a little bit more breathing room.
It also helps out drivers such as Team Penske’s Joey Logano and 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who find themselves just a handful of points either above the cut line or below it.
A winner on Sunday from below them in the point standings would have moved up the cut line and thus made locking in on points – or even potentially locking in with a win, depending on how many winners there end up being – a lot more challenging.
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