NASCAR's controversial playoff system has led to speculation about what the best way to determine a championship is. And since the offseason has officially begun, let's look across the pond for some inspiration, and a little harmless fun...
What is F1's Scoring System?
Formula 1 is different compared to most U.S. racing series in that it does not award points to every driver in the race, instead only awarding points to the top 10 finishers. The distribution is as follows:
There are additional rules to F1's points system, such as the fastest lap point (awarded to the driver with the fastest lap of the race as long as they finish in the top 10) and the Sprint points, but for now let's just stick to the standard Grand Prix points system that F1 has used since 2010.
What the F1 System Favors
The F1 system certainly favors wins more so than anything else. I mean, you get more than double the points for winning the race compared to finishing fourth, which seems extreme. The NASCAR comparison is not exactly 1:1 since there are nearly double the amount of cars on the grid in NASCAR, so a top 10 finish in NASCAR is harder to achieve compared to F1.
What the F1 System Penalizes
The biggest losers in the F1 points system are the drivers who often finish outside the top 10 but inside the top 20. In NASCAR, if you can rack up a string of 11th to 15th-place finishes, you can still find your way in a pretty good points position. In F1 11th place is as good as last, which can skew the picture slightly. Just ask Yuki Tsunoda, a perennial P11 merchant.
What About in-Season Penalties?
Unlike F1, NASCAR typically enforces penalties after the fact, rather than during a race or immediately following the race, where a driver would get disqualified (this does happen sometimes, but it is rare). Am I going to go through and find all of the mid-week points penalties NASCAR assessed throughout the season and convert them into this format? No. This is a bit of fun and doing that sounds like the antithesis of fun. That being said, I don't think the picture would have been changed greatly even if I did do this, at least at the sharp end.
Isn't There Some Kind of Butterfly Effect Here?
For years now, NASCAR has had the race include "stages" which see the top 10 drivers at the end of each stage awarded some points. The idea behind this is to award points to drivers who run well even if they finish poorly. It's also an excuse to show commercials, but whatever. The reason I bring this up is that often times teams will sacrifice the race finishing position to gain points at the end of each stage.
This means that teams are not always racing with the goal of finishing as high as possible (we can debate whether this is a dumb idea or not at another time), and so teams would almost certainly have changed their strategies if they had used the F1 points system in real time. However, in the interests of keeping things light (and keeping my sanity in check), I'm just going to use the official race results to tabulate the scores here and see what happens. So without further adieu...
Here's how the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Championship would play out if NASCAR used F1's Points System
We start the year with an interesting cast of characters in the top 10, with Ricky Stenhouse at the top of the standings for the first time ever. Below him are an eclectic mix of the reigning champion, road course aces like A.J. Allmendinger and Daniel Suárez, and first-time top 10 finisher and Xfinity Series regular Riley Herbst. Interestingly, four out of these drivers will finish in the top 10 at the end of the year, and only two will stay in the top 10 for the entire season.
The second race, and last at Auto Club Speedway in California, sees Kyle Busch win in just his second race for his new team Richard Childress Racing, vaulting him into essentially a tie for first place. Ross Chastain, Daniel Suárez, Alex Bowman, and Joey Logano are the only repeat scorers across the first two races, as Stenhouse still holds a lead but only just. Certainly the Chevrolets are looking good early on.
The bowtie dominance continues as Hendrick Motorsports finished 1-2-3 while teammate Chase Elliott suffers an injury while snowboarding that will take him out for the next six races. Bowman finally dethrones Stenhouse from the point, while Chevrolet hold the top 4 spots and all three wins so far. There are still quite a few drivers who are yet to make an appearance on either side of the board. Suárez and Bowman remain the only two with three consecutive top 10s to start the year.
The trip to Phoenix, the site of the Championship 4 race, ends with another Chevrolet victory as William Byron goes back-to-back and becomes the first driver to really have a notable lead in the standings. Stenhouse continues to drift back toward his expected position outside the top 10 and Bowman remains the only driver to have scored points in each race. Chase Elliot's replacement Josh Berry does a respectable job to snag a top 10 in his second race of the season.
After Daytona, Atlanta is the first superspeedway track and the mix of names on the board shows this. Ford finally gets on the board after Joey Logano outduels Brad Keselowski over the closing laps, with Christopher Bell gaining on the points leader as Byron fails to score. Corey LaJoie, Erik Jones, and rookie Ty Gibbs take their first points of the season as the top 10 in the standings still sees a lot of movement early on.
Toyota is now on the board for 2023 as Tyler Reddick joins Kyle Busch in the win-for-your-new-team category. The first road course of the season does throw up a few surprises like Todd Gilliland in 10th, and to a lesser extent Austin Cindric in 6th. The overall standings are beginning to become a bit more viscous, as his win sees Tyler Reddick become William Byron's closest challenger. Ricky Stenhouse stops his fall from grace with a respectable P7, as Chevrolet once again occupies six of the top 10 spots in the standings.
Another race, another Hendrick Motorsports victory; as Kyle Larson holds off surprise second-place finisher and SuperSub Josh Berry. Thanks to his string of consistent top 10s, Christopher Bell has caught William Byron for the lead, only behind by virtue of lacking a victory (for now). The top 10 remains mostly the same, even if the order is a bit scrambled. The key players of the season and the patterns of performance seem to be ever more apparent.
Remember Bell's lack of victories? That didn't last long, as he wins the Bristol Dirt race ahead of fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick. Despite still occupying six of the top 10 spots in the standings, Chevrolet has lost the lead in the standings for the first time, as it becomes more apparent that Ford, and especially Stewart-Haas Racing, are a bit behind compared to their rivals. Sure, Chase Briscoe snags a top 5 finish, but Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano are the only reliable performers for the blue oval up to this point.
The second Martinsville race is significantly more important than the first given it's the last chance to make the Championship 4, but that doesn't stop Hendrick Motorsports from winning another race, this time with Kyle Larson. Elsewhere, there's some signs of life for Stewart-Haas Racing as three of their four cars score points. Ricky Stenhouse continues to impress as he hangs onto the top 10 for longer than anyone expected, and Chase Elliott scores a point in his return from injury.
NASCAR heads back to the high banks and Kyle Busch takes it to the bank with another win for the Bowtie in 2023, ahead of a plethora of Fords behind. Seismic changes in the overall standings are becoming rarer and rarer as everyone gathers points, as Bell and Larson hold serve at the front of the field for another week. Todd Gilliland snags another under-the-radar P10 for Front Row Motorsports, his third score of the year.
As the circus heads into the summer stretch, many teams have the Dover-to-Nashville portion of the schedule circled as being of critical importance to benchmark themselves against the competition. It's Martin Truex, Jr. who comes out of the gates first after weather delays NASCAR's annual trip to Dover, DE and the Monster Mile. Josh Berry scores another top 10, this time as SuperSub for Alex Bowman who suffered a back injury in a midweek racing crash that will take him out of a few races.
NASCAR's first of two trips to my current "home track" of Kansas Speedway doesn't disappoint with great racing, a thrilling finish, a fight, and whatever else fans want at a NASCAR race these days. In the end, NASCAR's new most polarizing driver Denny Hamlin takes the win over new points leader Larson and Byron, who is turning the Larson-Bell title fight into a three-horse race. Remarkably, this is Hamlin's first appearance in the top 10 of the standings this season.
The Throwback Race at Darlington sees the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 win yet again, for the third time this season. Elsewhere, points leader Larson is involved in a controversial late-race incident that allows Byron to take a surprise 20-point lead when it looks like Larson could have extended his lead. Elsewhere, Harrison Burton opens his account for Wood Brothers Racing as Justin Haley and Kaulig Racing take a nice points haul for only the third time this season.
On the Greatest Day in Racing, Team Penske caps off the night with a surprising back-to-back win at the Indianapolis 500 and the the Coca-Cola 600 with Ryan Blaney. It's only Ford's second win of the season, and first on a non-superspeedway-type track. A second place for Byron extends his lead significantly over teammate Larson, while Blaney's win vaults him up to fourth. Fun fact: this was the only week where the actual "Championship 4" were 1-2-3-4 in these standings. Also, shoutout to Zane Smith for scoring a top 10 in one of a handful of one-off entries for the Truck Series regular.
St. Louis serves up a return to form for the Bowtie as Kyle Busch and RCR take their third win of the season and launch themselves into the title conversation. Elsewhere, there are no earth-shattering developments as the top 10 is more or less populated by who you'd expect at this point; 2 Hendrick cars, 2 Penske cars, 3 Gibbs cars, and one car from Trackhouse, 23XI, and RCR.
NASCAR's second right-hand turn adventure of the season sees Martin Truex, Jr. take another win at a track he is familiar with, as second place for Kyle Busch brings him within touching distance of William Byron. Road course specialists Michael McDowell and A.J. Allmendinger also score some decent points here, but the biggest story is the emergence of Joe Gibbs Racing as the team with the most momentum in the series right now.
The concrete jungle of Nashville Superspeedway gives Ross Chastain and Trackhouse their first win of the season, while the JGR juggernaut lurks in second and third with Truex and Hamlin, respectively. Erik Jones and A.J. Allmendinger are the durprise scorers, as Legacy Motor Club struggle in their lame duck season with Chevrolet and Allmendinger and KAulig have both struggled more than anticipated. In the standings, Truex continues to close on the leaders in rapid fashion.
NASCAR's street race experiment was a real opportunity for surprise, and they got it when Shane Van Gisbergen came in and won on debut to make it two wins in a row for Trackhouse. Justin Haley was a surprise runner-up in a race where the top 10 in the standings were not tremendously affected by the race despite its chaotic nature. Fun fact; after his win, SVG was all the way up in 21st in points, despite never having driven in NASCAR beforehand. This put him ahead of full-time drivers like Cindric, McDowell, Jones, LaJoie, Gibbs, Almirola, Burton, and Ryan Preece, who remained only one of two full-time drivers to be pointless at the season's halfway mark, along with Ty Dillon.
As we pass the halfway point, NASCAR makes its first repeat visit to a track, this time to Atlanta where the threat of rain results in frantic racing before William Byron takes his fourth win of the season and extends his championship lead over Kyle Busch. Again, the unique track leads to an intereting top 10, even if there is no change in the overall standings. Biggest surprise has to be J.J. Yeley in seventh, although you could make a "positive surprise" argument for a majority of the top 10.
The series' solitary trip to New Hampshire ends with another Martin Truex, Jr. victory, which closes up the standings behind leader Byron quite considerably. Elsewhere, Hamlin is the only mover in the top 10 in a race without too many significant surprises one way or another. Well, except for Kyle Busch who completed the trifecta by crashing in practice, qualifying, and the race before finishing last.
The Tricky Triangle certainly cemented Denny Hamiln's status as both the best active driver at that track, and the chief antagonist of the 2023 NASCAR season after a high-profile incident with Kyle Larson. Another top three finish from Truex sees him leap into second place while Hamlin and Reddick also make moves. Harrison Burton takes another rare points finish for the fabled No. 21 car, and rookie Ty Gibbs nabs an impressive top five finish.
The second trip to Richmond Raceway sees a surprise winner in RFK Racing's Chris Buescher, who has collected a lot of 11th- to 15th-place finishes but not many points over the summer. Behind him it's many of the usual suspects, with the note that Ryan Preece scores his first top 10 of the season to finally move off the mark and leave Ty Dillon as the only full-time driver without any points. Hamlin and JGR continue to be in the ascendancy here, with the fight for the lead of the championship tightening up among the top three with the top six realistically all within striking distance.
Seemingly from nowhere, Chris Buescher takes back-to-back wins with another triumph at Michigan after a tense duel with Martin Truex, Jr. that also sees the JGR driver take the lead in the standings after William Byron suffers a DNF. Elsewhere, the top 10 remains fairly constant with Truex being the only mover.
Another right-turn affair, another surprise winner; this time in the form of Michael McDowell ahead of NASCAR's most popular driver in Chase Elliott. A good performance from Tyler Reddick sees him climb the standings, but as the series heads into crunch time over the remaining races, it looks like the title will be decided between Truex, Byron, Busch, Larson, and Hamlin. Everyone else has been either too inconsistent or lacking enough raw pace to really make a run for the title at this point.
The title fight continues to heat up as William Byron takes another win on the season to get within five points of Martin Truex, Jr. The other big mover is Denny Hamlin, who has leapfrogged both Kyles after a solid performance from him and poor days from Larson and Busch. Elsewhere, Chris Buescher makes his first entry in the top 10 since the second race of the season back in February.
A stellar 1-2 for RFK Racing sees Buescher win his third race in five events, and vault himself up the standings at the race that serves as the playoff cutoff race in the current NASCAR format. Byron matches Truex on points, and his larger win total gives him the lead on a tiebreaker with ten races remaining. Byron and Truex continue to hold station at the front of the field with a decent buffer to Denny Hamlin behind as Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson see heir title hopes slipping away.
The start of the real-life NASCAR Playoffs takes place at Darlington, and with it comes a timely win from Kyle Larson and Hendrick Motorsports, which puts him back within striking distance of the two leaders of Byron and Truex. Elsewhere, Brad Keselowski enters the top 10 to make two RFK Fords at the front of the field, although interestingly Penske's Joey Logano still leads the charge for the manufacturer across the season.
Another solid finish from Larson and poor races from Byron and Truex (who crashed after a flat tire in the first five laps) sees the Hendrick driver match Truex on points and get within 12 of his teammate, while Hamlin also closes. With the number of races remaining in the season beginning to dwindle, it looks like NASCAr might get an organic, four-car title fight after all.
The annual Bristol night race sees Denny Hamlin jump all of his competitiors to grab the top spot as a major change happens at the front of the field. Larson follows Hamlin home in P2 and as a result finds himself in P2 in the standings as well, as Byron's ninth-place finish isn't enough to keep him in the lead of the title. Truex, meanwhile, continues his barren run which stretches back four races and slowly drifts away from the top three.
At Texas Motor Speedway, everyone's favorite track, an uncharacteristic error from Larson sees him blow a prime opportunity to build a points cushion that instead swings the other way as William Byron scores the walk-off win. This gives Byron his championship lead back ahead of Hamlin and Larson, while Truex again fails to register any points. Now nearly 40 points back, Truex's title hopes are quickly fading as it looks like Larson, Hamlin, and Byron will fight it out between them.
Heading into the lottery that is Talladega, Ryan Blaney scores his first win since May and his first significant points haul in months. Championship leader Byron manages a close second place, which slightly extends his championship lead over Hamlin who comes home third. Kyle Larson's superspeedway misery continues as he comes home point-less. There are a few notable underdog performances, with Corey LaJoie, Austin Cindric, Justin Haley, Ryan Preece, and Xfinity Series regular Riley Herbst scoring some rare points.
The last righthand corners of the year are at the Charlotte Roval, where road race ace A.J.Allmendinger takes the win for KAulig Racing in what is otherwise a fairly lackluster year for the squad. Byron's second place gives him a whopping 31-point lead over Hamlin, who crashed out in a mistake-filled weekend. Martin Truex, Jr.'s freefall continues, at he's now 75 points adrift and nearly mathematically eliminated from contention after leading the points eight races before.
With all the funny business out of the way, a return to normal racks sees Kyle Larson back on top as he fights to stay within striking distance of leader Byron. Ryan Blaney falls out of the top 10, as Ford continues to struggle compared to Chevrolet and Toyota. But hey, at least Martin Truex, Jr. finally scored some points, albeit only two points for a ninth-place finish. Christopher Bell's second place sees him gain a few spots as he closes in on his struggling teammate.
No longer the season-ender on the calendar, Homestead-Miami still did its job of ending the season for most teams as mechanical failures for Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex, Jr., plus a crash from Kyle Larson combined with a fourth place for William Byron sees the title all but wrapped up with two races to go. With a 48-point lead in the standings, Byron just has to finish ninth or better in one of the two following races to seal the title, as the title fight well and truly collapsed in Florida.
The second-to-last race of the season sees Byron put in an unusually poor performance, Denny Hamlin's third place isn't good enough to stop Byron and the No. 24 from sealing the championship with one race to spare. On a day where he nearly fainted and could barely stay on the lead lap, William Byron becomes the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Champion. Behind him, Hamlin and Larson will have to duke it out for second place, while Christopher Bell takes fourth with yet another solid performance.
Interestingly, the real-life "Championship 4" is well-represented here, with Byron, Larson, and Bell all being in the top 4 after this race. The other member of the group, Ryan Blaney, won the race and has a lot of momentum, but a lackluster summer sees him only eighth with one race left. Meanwhile, Hamlin is comfortably in the top three in these standings, but the mechanical failure at Homestead was too much to overcome in the NACAR Playoff format.
In this alternate world, the Phoenix finale would serve as a bit of a lame duck, with the title already sewn up by Byron the race before. Behind Byron, there would be much change as every position from second to eighth changed hands at the final race after weeks of relative calm. Hamlin's anomalous run loses him second place, while the first good race from Truex in over three months leaves him fourth. Bell's mechanical issue and Busch's lack of speed in the latter third of the year cost them each a spot, while another strong run from Blaney sees him finish P7 as the top Ford. All in all a lot of changes but the grand prize was never in doubt; something NASCAR never wants to see in the modern era.
William Byron is the Champion, but How Different is the Rest of the Field?
Well, I'm glad you asked, because I've gone through and compared every driver to their actual finishing position in the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Standings. And there's quite a few notable changes, especially in places where the playoff format wreaked havoc.
Who Would Have Benefitted Most from an F1-style Points System?
There are plenty of drivers who have a better position in the F1 system compared to the standard NASCAR system, but in my opinion there are four that benefit most form using a season-long format where really bad finishes are not punished as much as they otherwise would be.
Kyle Busch (+8)
Actual Pos.: 14th
"F1" Pos.: 6th
In his first year with RCR, Busch and Co. really stumbled their way to the finish line, which cost them dearly in the ultra-competitive playoff elimination format that NASCAR uses these days. When you consider the fact that he was consistently a top performer over the first half of the season, a sixth place seems a lot more representative than the 14th he ended up with. But that's what you get when the back end of your season is littered with a bunch of incidents and poor pace in a points format that really only values the last ten races.
Martin Truex, Jr. (+7)
Actual Pos.: 11th
"F1" Pos.: 4th
Much like Busch, Truex had a disastrous end to the season, in which he only scored two top 10s and zero top 5s across the final ten races. The only saving grace for him was that his regular season was good enough to carry him through most of the playoffs despite this lackluster performance (and some poor luck). There's no way anyone would consider Martin Truex, Jr. to be the 11th best driver of the year, and yet here we are. A top 5 finish in points is more fitting, even if the end-of-year collapse doesn't exactly inspire confidence into 2024.
A.J. Allmendinger (+5)
Actual Pos.: 21st
"F1" Pos.: 16th
Allmendinger suffers in the NASCAR standings from the problem of doing too little, too late. His performance was considerably better in the playoffs than before it, but by that point he had lost too much ground to make a mark. Also helping Allmendinger in the "F1" points is that his bad days were really bad, but that's not penalized nearly as much as the NASCAR format does. A win and a couple of top fives is respectable, and 16th is a better indication of how he did than 21st in my opinion.
Chase Elliott (+4)
Actual Pos.: 17th
"F1" Pos.: 13th
Ah yes, Chase Elliott. I'm gonna stop short of saying "what could have been" because even though he missed seven races, he still failed to win a race out of the remaining 29, and his teammates were first and second in the "F1" standings. He never quite looked like he was ever in position to win, but he was very consistent and showed that he could have gotten through at least a couple of rounds of the playoffs had he managed to sneak in. Maybe next time, just stick to playing SSX instead of doing it yourself, Chase; because this season wasn't as terrible as it looks at a first glance.
What about Chase Briscoe?
Yes, Briscoe technically gained the most positions of anyone under the "F1" format, but a major part of why he was so far behind in the regular standings is because he was assessed a heavy penalty during the year; otherwise he would have fared better than it looks. Because I'm not dealing with penalties I'm not gonna say he was a "big winner" or anything, and even still he would have still been outside the top 20.
Who Loses the Most with an F1-style System?
As I touched on earlier, the F1 system is most harmful to drivers who consistently finish just outside the top 10; and you'll see that drivers with a lot of finishes in the 11th- to 20th-place range really got hammered here.
Ryan Preece (-8)
Actual Pos.: 23rd
"F1" Pos.: 31st
Everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing had a bad year, but arguably nobody suffered more than Preece and the No. 41 team. It took them over half a season just to get a top 10, and other than a third place at Richmond there was little to write home about. Sure, there a lot of high-teens, low-20s finishes, but that's worth nothing in this system.
Ryan Blaney (-6)
Actual Pos.: 1st
"F1" Pos.: 7th
The actual 2023 champion paid the price for his mid-year slump and could only make it back to seventh at the end. Still it was a respectable result as he finished the best out of all the Ford drivers, but the current NASCAR playoff format rewards drivers who get hot at the right time, and Blaney gamed the system to perfection. The F1 system is a little bit harder to manipulate, for lack of a better word.
Bubba Wallace (-5)
Actual Pos.: 10th
"F1" Pos.: 15th
Bubba still had a decent year, but the lack of a win and a slow start to the season cost him dearly in the F1 points system. In the NASCAR system, he squeaked his way into the playoffs by the skin of his teeth and performed consistently enough to make it through the first round. Arguably the lackluster regular season cost him at the end of the year in the NASCAR playoffs through a lack of bonus points, and it cost him in the F1 points system as well.
Well, that was interesting. What's the point of all this?
The point? In a way, there is no point. I just wanted to see, using a system which takes into account good performances across the entire year, how the NASCAR Cup drivers fared. Surely you could read a few stories into this, like Ford's general underperformance despite winning the title. Kyle Busch and Martin Truex, Jr.'s seasons weren't that bad. Hendrick Motorsports really is still the best team in the sport on most weekends. I could go on, or you could draw your own conclusions. But in the end, the point was just to have a bit of fun. And before you ask, I'm not going to go the other way and rank F1 drivers using NASCAR's points, because the NASCAR system is just too complicated to do after the fact.