Roval rundown: Who’s in and out of the NASCAR Cup playoffs after Charlotte race
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick exited the playoffs after Charlotte.
- Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson and others advanced to the Round of 8.
- Shane van Gisbergen won the Roval race but remained outside playoff contention.
Shane van Gisbergen did his part to make the race for Sunday’s checkered flag interesting — falling to third in the final stage after dominating all day, only to engage in a fiery battle with Kyle Larson to reclaim the lead before ultimately walking away with a 10-plus-second victory.
All of that was thrilling, no doubt.
But here’s the thing: This race, by virtue of it being an elimination race, would’ve been interesting no matter what.
The conclusion of the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course — locally referred to as the Roval — marked the end of four drivers’ championship dreams for the 2025 season. That meant that strategy and racing among the middle of the pack took center stage.
The list of those who were officially eliminated from the Cup Series playoffs on Sunday is the following: Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick.
That means Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano advanced to the Round of 8, which begins next weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Van Gisbergen, the overwhelming favorite who now has five road-course wins to his name this season, was eliminated from playoff contention at the start of the Round of 12.
Here’s a look at how a handful of playoff drivers fared on Sunday at the Concord racetrack.
Tyler Reddick starts on the pole, needed a massive day
Tyler Reddick did his best Michael Jordan-clutch performance last year at the Charlotte Roval. He rose up the field that October 2024, from the rear to 11th over the course of Stage 3 to keep his championship dreams alive.
He couldn’t repeat his same heroics Sunday. Despite having a great run to start the race — and even starting on the pole, one spot ahead of eventual race-winner SVG — Reddick began Stage 3 in P22 and ultimately finished the race in 10th. That was not enough to make up for the 29 points he needed to advance past Sunday.
Kyle Larson does plenty to advance
Kyle Larson temporarily shocked the field when he took the lead from van Gisbergen with 46 laps to go in the midst of a braking zone Friday. It was an aggressive move — very much of Larson’s style — and a statement for a driver who has won at the Roval twice since the race course debuted in 2018.
Larson absolutely did not need to race van Gisbergen so hard. But that’s what racers do. This is what Larson does. He ultimately finished second after getting passed back by SVG late in Stage 3; the 5 team probably didn’t mind all that much because Larson started the race safely above the cut-line.
Christopher Bell is told not to race after Stage 2 ... for good reason
Christopher Bell’s radio crackled to life as he filed down pit road after Stage 2. What the driver heard: “No racing here.” The voice might’ve been advising Bell to take his time on pit lane. The voice might’ve also been telling him what to do on the racetrack because Bell simply didn’t need to be a hero to move on to the Round of 8.
That’s not to say he necessarily listened. When Larson took the lead from van Gisbergen late in Stage 3, he saw that van Gisbergen’s efforts trying to hold off Larson slowed him down, and Bell capitalized on the situation by moving to P2 with 46 laps to go. Wise stuff. It wasn’t the most consequential sequence of Sunday, however; Bell ultimately finished third.
Ross Chastain has a big day in Stage 2, but it ultimately wasn’t enough
Ross Chastain finished Stage 2 in fourth, which delivered him a massive amount of valuable points as he tried to keep his playoff hopes alive. That put him in a great spot come Stage 3: Chastain needed to outrun Joey Logano by four spots to supplant him for that final spot in the Round of 8.
And for a moment, such prospects looked promising. Chastain clawed his way all the way up to six spots ahead of Logano, last year’s 2024 Cup Series championship. But then Chastain suffered a penalty for speeding on pit road, making the battle between the No. 1 car and the No. 22 car close, and then, on the final lap, Denny Hamlin passed Chastain. Ultimately, Logano prevailed: Chastain finished 21st; Logano finished 20th.
Austin Cindric sees his day go from bad to worse
Austin Cindric was 48 points below the cut-line coming into Sunday. He needed a walk-off win to stay in the championship hunt. (And that’s happened before; just ask Bell in 2022.) More accurately: He needed a miracle. And not only did a miracle not surface — a decent day failed to come, too.
Cindric finished dead last in a day in which car troubles forced his team to take the car behind the wall and into the Charlotte Motor Speedway garage area. He was one of only 11 cars that didn’t end on the lead lap: Cindric finished 21 laps down. Kyle Busch also failed to finish on the lead lap; he ended eight laps down thanks to a car failure after the first turn on the race’s first lap.
This story was originally published October 5, 2025 at 6:26 PM.
