An exciting part of any sport is seeing a playoff run by a Cinderella team. The last few weeks have shown what can happen in the NASCAR Cup Series, as upsets altered the playoff field.
A Cinderella team could make an impact in the playoffs, which begins Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on USA Network).
With that in mind, here’s a look at the Cinderella factor for each of the 16 playoff drivers, ranking each from zero stars to five stars (the biggest Cinderella teams) on the NBC Sports Cinderella scale.
Harrison Burton
Cinderella rating: 5 stars
Cinderella factor: Few saw this team winning a race and making the playoffs after finishing 27th or worse in eight of the first nine races of the year, but NASCAR’s win-and-you’re-in system has Burton and Wood Brothers Racing in the playoffs. Making it through the first round would be an achievement. Going beyond that could be memorable.
Playoff seeding: 14th
Highlight: Held off Kyle Busch to win at Daytona in August to earn a playoff spot.
Lowlight: Has finished 30th or worse in 12 of the 26 races in the regular season.
Burton says: “For us (the playoffs are) just to make the most of the opportunity. What we have done through the beginning of the year to where we are now doesn’t matter. What matters is now we are tied for points on the cutline to make it to the next round. We’re going into Atlanta, which is a wildcard race. We’re going to Watkins Glen, which is another wildcard race. We go to Bristol, which is a third wildcard race.”
Chase Briscoe
Cinderella rating: 5 stars
Cinderella factor: Stewart-Haas Racing is closing after this season, forcing more than 300 people to find work for next year. Briscoe secured a playoff spot in the final chance to do so, winning the Southern 500. Any type of run by Briscoe in the playoffs will be big.
Playoff seeding: 13th
Highlight: Holding off Kyle Busch in the final laps to win the Southern 500 in the last race of the regular season.
Lowlight: Briscoe had led only 14 laps all season going into Darlington. He led 29 laps in that race, including the final 26.
Briscoe says: “Our biggest battle, especially in these playoffs is you are racing against yourself. You cannot put yourself in a bad spot. You can’t have a pit road mistake. On the racetrack, I can’t do something to put myself in a bad spot or get myself in the wall and lose a ton of points.”
Daniel Suarez
Cinderella rating: 4.5 stars
Cinderella factor: A title would cap a memorable 2024 for Suarez, who got married and became a U.S. citizen this year.
Playoff seeding: 11th
Highlight: Won the closest 1-2-3 finish in Cup history, nipping Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch to win at Atlanta in February.
Lowlight: He has five pit road speeding penalties this season, tied for the most in the series this year.
Suarez says: “This year we’ve been working extremely hard, but the results have been slower than what we thought they were going to be. I wouldn’t consider myself one of the favorites for the championship right now, but is that going to change my mentality of who I am as a racecar driver and the potential of the 99 (team) and Trackhouse in the playoffs? Of course not. I know how good we are on road courses; how good we were at Atlanta. I know how good we can be at some of these racetracks and the first two rounds are very critical. I believe if we have good execution days in the first couple of rounds, we can get to the Round of 8.”
Austin Cindric
Cinderella rating: 4.5 stars
Cinderella factor: Although he’s with one of the better teams in Team Penske, Cindric has struggled to score strong finishes. He has only three top-10 finishes this season.
Playoff seeding: 10th
Highlight: Won at World Wide Technology Raceway after teammate Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel coming to the white flag, giving Cindric the lead and the win.
Lowlight: Cindric has one top-10 finish in the 11 races since that victory.
Cindric says: “I’m proud of everyone sticking to the process and kind of the narrative that we have laid out to start the year. We’ve got a lot of young guys and in roles that they haven’t been in at this high level for that long, including myself. I feel like it’s a lot of fun to have a team that young but sometimes it takes a lot of patience, just like having a younger driver, an inexperienced driver. Patience has kind of been the name of the game for me because I kind of want it yesterday type thing.”
Alex Bowman
Cinderella rating: 4 stars
Cinderella factor: The overshadowed driver at Hendrick Motorsports. Rumors have been prevalent at times this year about him losing his ride even though he has a contract through 2026. Another such rumor became public this week. Bowman spent part of his Cup playoff media day Wednesday denying the rumor. To go from fending off a rumor at the start of the playoffs to winning the championship would be quite a run.
Playoff seeding: 12th
Highlight: Earned a playoff spot with his victory on the streets of Chicago in July.
Lowlight: Has finished outside the top 10 in nine of the last 12 races in the regular season.
Bowman says: “It’s been a miserable month. We haven’t executed on a high level at all, so we need to go run better the next 10 weeks.”
Ty Gibbs
Cinderella rating: 4 stars
Cinderella factor: The 21-year-old grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs is in his first Cup playoffs and seeks his first series win. It would be something if he gave Joe Gibbs Racing its first Cup title since 2019.
Playoff seeding: 16th
Highlight: Finished a career-best second at Darlington in May.
Lowlight: Placed 27th after an engine failure at Pocono and then was 23rd at Indianapolis a week later with engine issues.
Gibbs says: “It is cool being an underdog.”
Martin Truex Jr.
Cinderella rating: 3.5 stars
Cinderella factor: This is his last full-time Cup season. He still seeks his first win of the year. The team has had speed at times but struggled to put together a full race. A memorable playoff run would make up for last year’s miserable playoff performance.
Playoff seeding: 15th
Highlight: Finished a season-best second at Bristol in the spring.
Lowlight: He has had wrecks in the last three races of the regular season.
Truex says: “I’d certainly like to be the guy on top with the most points, right? That’s the best place to be, so I don’t think we’re in a great spot, by any means. I think we have a good opportunity ahead of us, though. Great team and we’ve been really fast lately. Just need to execute, clean up a lot of mistakes, and a lot of that is on my end as well. We know what we need to do, we’ve done it before, and we’re excited to get going.”
Brad Keselowski
Cinderella rating: 3 stars
Cinderella factor: Could give RFK Racing its first Cup title since 2004.
Playoff seeding: 8th
Highlight: Won at Darlington in May.
Lowlight: He led the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis when the caution sent the race into overtime. Keselowski ran out of fuel while leading and had to pit before the restart. He finished 21st instead of winning that race.
Keselowski says: “We always start the playoffs thinking we know what’s going to happen and something happens that we go, “I didn’t see that coming.’ I don’t think this one will be any different.”
Joey Logano
Cinderella rating: 2.5 stars
Cinderella factor: He has made the championship round every even-numbered year since 2014 — ’14, ’16, ’18, ’20 and ’22 — and won the title in 2018 and 2022. Based on that, this should be another good season but Logano has only one win and has not been among the strongest teams. Can this team rally again in the playoffs?
Playoff seeding: 9th
Highlight: His tremendous fuel saving, which allowed him to win at Nashville after five overtime restarts.
Lowlight: He has had five finishes of 19th or worse in the seven races since his Nashville victory.
Logano says: “We’re grinding right now, for sure, but I think we’ll be fine. I think we’ve got a good chance to win this thing. We’re on a bit of an uptick, I feel like. Maybe some of the finishes don’t show it, but you look at Richmond, was really good. … Daytona we’re in the lead when we wreck, or front of the bottom lane. Last week (at Darlington) was OK as well. Not great but OK. If you can tie together a lot of those OK races and get through the rounds and get a little bit more speed, next thing you know, you win the championship.”
Chase Elliott
Cinderella rating: 2 stars
Cinderella factor: He looks to go from missing the playoffs last year to winning the championship this year.
Playoff seeding: 7th
Highlight: Snapped a 42-race winless streak with his victory at Texas in the spring.
Lowlight: Got turned by Daniel Suarez on the last lap at Chicago and finished outside the top 20 for the first time this season. Elliott has finished outside the top 20 only twice this year.
Elliott says: “I think that if we can just get the things that we need to do, going right, I think we can be good all the way through it. Obviously, Darlington was bad for sure. We ran way worse than we had hoped to run there. But when I look back at Pocono, Indy, and Michigan, I was really happy where we were headed.”
Denny Hamlin
Cinderella rating: 1.5 stars
Cinderella factor: He’s never won a Cup championship despite multiple chances. After starting the year by getting engaged, could he end the year as a champion?
Playoff seeding: 6th
Highlight: Hamlin’s pit crew gave him the lead ahead of the overtime restart at Richmond in the spring and Hamlin went on to win the race, one of three victories this season.
Lowlight: Mistake by Toyota Racing Development with one of Hamlin’s engines led to NASCAR penalizing the team, costing Hamlin 75 points and 10 playoff points.
Hamlin says: “I feel like our chances are as good as anyone. Now, I would say that the 45 (Tyler Reddick), the 20 (Christopher Bell), the 5 (Kyle Larson) have a better chance because they have more playoff points going into the playoffs. But, ultimately, we’re one of the very few cars that can win any given week.”
William Byron
Cinderella rating: 1.5 stars
Cinderella factor: Byron’s journey is remarkable. He started iRacing and did not race a car until he was 14 years old, a late start compared to many of his competitors. Still, he won the championship in the Xfinity Series in 2017 and landed a ride with Hendrick Motorsports in 2018. Winning a Cup title would add another chapter to his incredible story.
Playoff seeding: 4th
Highlight: Won the Daytona 500.
Lowlight: He had a career-long nine-race stretch where he did not lead a lap this summer.
Byron says: “We’ve been waiting for this for a while. As you soon as you win early in the season, your goals shift to what can we do to get bonus points and what can we do to get ready for the fall. That’s really what has been it’s about. Now we get to put that to the test and take it one race at a time.”
Ryan Blaney
Cinderella rating: 1 star
Cinderella factor: Hard to rank the reigning series champion as a Cinderella, but the team had a slow start to the season (five top 10s in the first 15 races) and no driver has won back-to-back Cup titles since Jimmie Johnson’s five-peat from 2006-10.
Playoff seeding: 5th
Highlight: Won the inaugural Cup race at Iowa Speedway with several members of his extended family in attendance.
Lowlight: Ran out of fuel while leading and coming to the white flag at World Wide Technology Raceway. He finished 24th.
Blaney says: “I think you have your group of guys who have been strong all year. I look at the 5 (Kyle Larson), the 11 (Denny Hamlin), 20 (Christopher Bell), 45 (Tyler Reddick). I would even put us in that category.”
Tyler Reddick
Cinderella rating: ½ star
Cinderella factor: Co-owner Denny Hamlin said he had a five-year plan for 23XI Racing. Reddick is in position — in the organization’s fourth year — to give the team its first Cup title. No team other than Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing has won a championship the past six seasons.
Playoff seeding: 3rd
Highlight: Won regular season championship with a 10th-place finish at Darlington.
Lowlight: Reddick led a race-high 174 laps in the spring Darlington race but an aggressive move late to get by Chris Buescher for the lead backfired and the contact cost both drivers the chance to win. Reddick finished 32nd and Buescher had words with Reddick on pit road after the race.
Reddick says: “Maybe the numbers show that (the No. 45 team is a favorite), but I don’t think we are carrying ourselves around like we are the baddest group around. I think we just do a good job of each individual on the team doing their part throughout the week — we just show up to the racetrack and we have a good amount of focus and we do a really good job of getting the results that we need, even on the days that we have issue — that has been a nice thing about this year, a number of times, countless times it feels like, we have things not go our way and we have been able to fight through it and still get the results.”
Christopher Bell
Cinderella rating: 0 stars
Cinderella factor: Hard to be a Cinderella when you are the only driver to make it to the championship round in each of the past two years.
Playoff seeding: 2nd
Highlight: Won Coca-Cola 600, among his three victories this year.
Lowlight: Failed to finish six of the 26 races in the regular season.
Bell says: “I will tell you that I’ve (reached the title race) the past two years and I’m in a much better position now than I have been in the last two years. The plan is clear, and the path is right in front of us. We just have to execute, and we’ve got a little bit more wiggle room than we had the last couple of years.”
Kyle Larson
Cinderella rating: 0 stars
Cinderella factor: None. He’s viewed as among the favorites and looks to add a second Cup title this year.
Playoff seeding: 1st
Highlight: Won Kansas race in closest finish in series history, beating Chris Buescher by .001 seconds.
Lowlight: He won the pole at Chicago and was challenging for second place on the street course when he crashed and finished a season-worst 39th.
Larson says: “We’re really fast, I feel like, at every race track; road courses, superspeedways, all that. Our execution is – I know it might not seem like it at times, but I think our execution is great. And I think we’ve also overcome a lot of adversity at times, so I think we’re well-rounded as a team.”