The first round of playoff performances defied expectations in good and bad ways.
That is my excuse why my first attempt at prediction was an abject failure. I predicted Alex Bowman, William Byron, Chase Briscoe and Austin Dillon to be the first four drivers out of the game. Only Dillon managed to move on to the round of 12.
Of course, my algorithm didn’t account for Kyle Busch after two engine failures in three races. Especially when he had not had a single engine failure in the previous 92 races.
Nor did the algorithm predict that Darlington’s race with Kevin Harvick would end in fire.
Or that none of the 16 playoff drivers would win even one of the first three playoff races.
On the plus side, playoff drivers have taken 11 of a possible top 15 (73%), and 21 of 30 top-10s (70%) which is consistent with a season that featured 19 different winners.
Chase Elliott is the only driver to win more than two races this season. Drivers made the playoffs by finishing well rather than winning a lot of races.
Playoff performance by the numbers
In the table to the right, I list drivers in points order after Bristol – but before they are reseeded. This may interest you : New Netflix movies and programs coming in August 2022. Red numbers indicate DNFs.
DNFs played a big role in the first round. All four drivers who were eliminated had at least one DNF. Harvick and Busch each had two. Both Busch’s and Harvick’s DNFs were due to equipment failure.
Only three drivers earned top-10 finishes in the three playoff races: Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Byron. Two of my predictions overperformed. And he wasn’t the only driver I expected to dominate the playoffs.
Relative to the regular season
Barring equipment failures and crashes, one expects most drivers to perform, on average, at the same level they did during the regular season. This may interest you : Best Sci-Fi TV Shows on Netflix. That mostly didn’t happen.
In the first two elimination rounds, the top 10s are enough to stay in the game. So that’s the metric I’ll focus on here.
The graph below compares the top-10 finish percentage of drivers in the first three playoff races with the same metric from the regular season.
Each arrow starts at the driver’s regular season average and travels to the playoff average. Blue indicates better playoff performance than the regular season and red indicates the opposite.
Six drivers performed better than regular season averages would suggest.
Byron entered the playoffs ranked 10th with just five top-10 finishes in the regular season. With three top-10 finishes in the first round of the playoffs, he scored the second most points of any driver in the round of 16.
Hamlin had the second biggest improvement with two second place finishes and a ninth place finish. That continues his season-long trend of trying to overcome slow starts.
Bell’s 53.8 top-10% regular season rate doesn’t give him much room for improvement. But he did. He is also the only driver to have three career best finishes in the top five.
Bowman, whose crew chief Greg Ives will retire at the end of this season, saw his top 10 finishes increase from 38.5% to 66.6%.
“I think we’re very motivated,” Bowman said, “because Greg’s been with me the last 10 races and we want to finish on a high note. We know the summer doesn’t matter anymore, our troubles, and it’s a good reset for us going into the playoffs.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise was Elliott. He has the most finishes of any driver with 18. But only one came from the first round of playoffs.
Momentum
A driver ends up rising and falling throughout a season. The ups and downs are even bigger this year because of the new Next Gen car. See the article : 22 compelling stories, teams, coaches and players that will dominate the 2022 college football season. For that reason, it is worth comparing the playoff performance not only to the average of the entire regular season, but also to the last five regular season races.
The arrows on the next plot start at the top-10 rate for each driver’s last five regular season races and travel to their playoff rate.
Seven drivers improved on their final five regular season races – the previous six, plus Daniel Suárez. Suárez rose from 20% to 33.3%. That’s typical for a season that has been fairly consistent, but not at a level that will take it to the final four.
Byron’s turnaround is even more impressive given that he has no top-10 finishes in the last five races of the regular season.
“I think we had a lot of really good runs at the beginning of the year,” Byron said. “Chasing speed and running some things, we gave up a little bit in the summer.”
He believes the team has returned to where they need to be.
“We know what works; we know what doesn’t work,” Byron said. “We definitely know what doesn’t work after the last month or so, so that’s a good thing.”
Joey Logano has the biggest downward trend over the last five races, going from a top-10 rate of 80.0% to 33.3%.
This graph shows Elliott’s decline in play as a trend that continues since the end of the regular season. That might be good news for the other drivers who are struggling to catch up.
Scoring and re-seeding
The table below summarizes the points and playoff points earned during the three playoff races and each driver’s final score before reseeding. The lineup looks very different than it did in this round of three races.
I didn’t appreciate replay points until I did the math. All drivers who advance to the round of 12 receive 3000 points, plus their total playoff points.
As none of these drivers won a race, only five of the 21 playoff points available in the last three races affect the new standings. Bell won two degrees; Byron, Bowman and Busch one each.
So we’re pretty much back to where we were leaving Daytona.
The spot fell to Ryan Blaney. Byron’s dramatic comeback did not affect his playoff position. Most of Bowman’s move up the charts is due to the elimination of drivers who were originally seventh, ninth and 11th.
The current standings reflect NASCAR’s eternal struggle between victory and consistency. On the one hand, I understand the desire to emulate other major sporting events and not let the results of the last round affect the next round. But when the regular season playoff points are carried over, Elliott returns to P1 despite earning fewer points in the three playoff races than seven of the 16 drivers.
That’s why Bell, who earned nearly twice as many points as Elliott and won two stages, is tied for sixth with Hamlin and Blaney. Elliott goes 40 points behind Bell to 27 points ahead of him.
If Bell or any of the other drivers want to challenge Elliott, even top five finishes won’t be enough.
In these playoffs, performance is not enough. You have to win.
