The 2025 NASCAR champions under the new Chase format – revealed

NASCAR's Championship Weekend in 2025 was...controversial.

You all remember how it played out – on the Friday, Corey Heim had to make one of the best (possibly illegal) restarts of all time to avoid one of the most dominant Truck seasons of all time ending without a title, before Connor Zilisch actually did see a ten-win season go down the drain the next day, surpassed by a driver who came into the race on a 31-race winless streak.

Then came the Sunday, and Denny Hamlin being within three laps of his long-awaited first championship when William Byron's tire blew out to bring out a caution and hand the title to Kyle Larson, who didn't lead a single lap of the race (Hamlin, by contrast, had led 208).

If a championship format overhaul looked possible before that weekend, it became absolutely certain after those three days at the end of the season.

Now, we have the Chase. A ten-race season-ender (or nine- and seven-race season-ender, for the O'Reilly Series and Truck Series respectively), where wins mean a lot more points, there's no more win-and-in, and 'regular season' standings give you a little boost.

The excellent numbers man Joseph Srigley has pored over all of 2025's race results, stage points and more to provide a picture of how each series would've ended if the Chase was retroactively bolted onto it. And the thing is...

NASCAR's 2025 champions in the Chase format

Kyle Larson still would've won. In fact, Hamlin would've finished the year all the way down in sixth – disappointing, but possibly less heartbreaking than the way it actually played out.

Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe in second and third would actually have made Hamlin the third ranked driver on his own team, no doubt in large part due to the issues he had after securing his spot in the Championship 4.

The increased points for a race win – 55, rather than 40 – mean that Shane van Gisbergen would've sneaked into the Chase, with his sole postseason win at the Roval putting him 15th, over Austin Cindric in 16th.

In the Xfinity Series (it was still the Xfinity Series then!), Zilisch would've ended with a comfortable 79-point margin over team-mate Justin Allgaier, with actual champion Jesse Love a further 80 points back in third.

Corey Heim would've taken the Truck Series by over 200 points. Seriously, there aren't the words to describe just how dominant he was last year.

Here are those standings in full, for the curious...

NASCAR Cup Series 2025 standings (with the Chase)

NASCAR Xfinity Series 2025 standings (with the Chase)

NASCAR Truck Series 2025 standings (with the Chase)

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