The 2025 NASCAR season came to a close on Sunday, with champions being crowned in all three national series at Phoenix Raceway.
To be the series champion, drivers have to survive rounds of eliminations until there are only four remaining in the title fight. Of those four, the highest finishing driver at the championship race at Phoenix will win the championship. Viewers assume that the best driver over the course of the season would win the championship.
For example, in the Craftsman Truck Series, Corey Heim capped off his dominant season with a win in the season finale and the title of 2025 Champion for the series. The win was Heim’s 12th of his record-breaking season and his 19th Top 5 in a 25-race season, making him a truly deserving champion for the series.
However, the overall best driver for the season isn’t always crowned as the champion.
In the Xfinity Series, Jesse Love won at Phoenix to claim the trophy. Series rookie Connor Zilisch had been the odds-on favorite to win the championship, but he came up short in the final race. Zilisch had dominated the Xfinity Series with 10 wins, 20 Top 5’s in 32 races, and over 1,000 laps led. Yet he finished six points behind Love in the season standings.
Because of a rare stumble in the final race, Zilisch finished second in the standings to Love. To his credit, Love had a strong sophomore campaign, with two wins and nine Top 5’s, but Zilisch had the better overall season.
In NASCAR’s premiere series, Kyle Larson crossed the line in third as the highest-finishing Championship 4 contender to win the championship. Over the season, Larson collected two wins and 22 Top 5’s in 36 races, a good showing for the now two-time Cup champion.
However, his championship celebration was overshadowed by the driver who finished three points below him in the standings.
Series veteran Denny Hamlin, in his 20th season at the Cup level, came up just short. Hamlin, looking for his seventh win and 15th Top 5, put together a dominant performance in the final race, qualifying in the pole position, winning a stage, and leading 208 of the 319 total laps in the race.
Hamlin was leading with three laps to go when the caution came out for a tire issue on William Byron’s car. Byron, a championship contender, was running third at the time of the incident.
This caution forced an overtime restart, which is a two-lap shootout to determine the race winner. Many drivers elected to pit, with most of them – including Larson – deciding to take two right-side tires to increase their track position. Hamlin and his crew, on the other hand, decided to put all four tires on the car for added grip, but he lined up multiple spots behind Larson on the restart.
In the Truck Series race, Heim took four tires and drove his truck all the way down to the very bottom of the track, taking the race seven-wide to take the lead and the win. Hamlin attempted to replicate this very same move in Cup, but after Larson got a good jump in the outside lane, Hamlin wasn’t able to catch up and Larson won the championship in overtime.
Larson finished third in the race, while Hamlin finished sixth.
This highlights one of NASCAR’s flaws: the playoff system. Currently, NASCAR has just one race to decide a champion after 35 prior races in the season.
This is compounded by the presence of overtime, which is chaotic and unpredictable. Having an entire season of racing come down to two laps is not how a champion should be crowned.
NASCAR needs to find a solution for this. One solution could be to keep the playoffs, with rounds of three races until four drivers remain, but instead of a single race at the end, another round of three races with the four championship drivers could be the way to go.
NASCAR could also go back to the old points format, the Chase, which emphasized season-long points. This would make drivers strive to be more consistent during the regular season, making racing more exciting for fans.
Next year, the format and schedule is already set, with a final race being held at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In the future, NASCAR should revisit the system that they have in place currently and make it better.
