Ryan Blaney Wins at New Hampshire and Heads Into the Final Stretch of the Chase in Strong Form

Ryan Blaney repeated as winner of the Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a result that virtually finalized the first Chase field under NASCAR Cup Series' new format, with Ross Chastain becoming the first driver eliminated from contention and Daytona serving as the final race to set the 16-driver playoff grid.

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The race began on a damp track, and most of the 36 cars had to start on rain tires, an unusual sight at the Loudon oval. The track dried enough to allow the switch to dry tires around lap 40, and from that point on the running order was completely reshuffled.

The No. 12 Team Penske car had to fight back after a difficult pit stop, when a loose lug nut forced the crew to bring Blaney back in and cost him track position at a moment when he was battling for the lead. The response came on the final stop, when the team opted to change only two tires instead of four to gain time on pit road—a gamble that returned him to the front and helped him lead 115 of the 301 scheduled laps.

Bubba Wallace, on fresher tires, closed in enough to threaten the win in the closing laps, but a brake lockup on the left-front wheel cost him momentum just when he needed it most, and he finished second ahead of Josh Berry.

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Berry, in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, scored his third consecutive top-five finish at Loudon and his fourth straight top-ten finish of the season, a streak the team hadn't achieved since 1994, when Morgan Shepherd drove for Wood Brothers. The team has already announced that Berry will not return next season, making these results especially timely as he looks for a ride in 2027.

Christopher Bell finished fourth, his third top-five in the last four races, and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five. Denny Hamlin, seventh in the race, had enough of a points cushion to clinch the regular-season championship, which gives him the highest points advantage available heading into the Chase.

This season, NASCAR moved away from the round-based elimination playoff system it used for more than two decades and returned to the Chase, the format it employed between 2004 and 2010. The win-and-you're-in rule no longer exists. The 16 drivers with the most points after 26 races advance to the next stage, each starting with a points total that depends on their final regular-season position, with a five-point gap between each spot from fourth to 16th.

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Chastain arrived at New Hampshire 63 points below the cutoff and needed an extraordinary result to stay alive. The engine in the No. 1 Chevrolet failed on lap 41, signaling the end of his season before Daytona. He is the first driver eliminated under the new format, coming just two years after he was the runner-up in 2022.

With Blaney's win, thirteen drivers have now secured their spots among the 16: Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Carson Hocevar, William Byron, and Daniel Suárez. There are three spots still to be decided, with Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, and Shane van Gisbergen currently holding those positions. Ryan Preece sits 31 points below the cutoff, and Brad Keselowski is 66 points back.

The previous week at Richmond, that list had already shifted considerably. Joey Logano won the Cook Out 400, his second win in four races, and moved up to ninth in the standings after being 20th just six races earlier. Austin Cindric finished third that night and moved right to the cutoff line, a spot he now holds with a narrow margin. Kyle Larson had gone through a rough stretch with incidents at Chicagoland, Atlanta, North Wilkesboro, and Iowa, but emerged from that slump with a sixth-place finish at Richmond, moving up two spots in the standings, a position he held with his fifth at New Hampshire.

Tyler Reddick is still carrying the cost of a crash at Iowa, when he lost control on lap four and sent the Toyota of Erik Jones into the wall—a collision that also hurt a driver who was fighting for the Chase. That incident dropped him from second to fourth in the overall standings, and the gap to Hamlin has now grown to nearly 140 points. He finished eighth at New Hampshire after spinning on the first lap on the damp track.

The absence of the win-and-you're-in rule, which had been in place from 2014 through last year, changes the calculus heading into Daytona. Winning the race still scores a lot of points, but it's no longer an automatic ticket, so anyone outside the cutoff depends on the points table rather than a single Sunday result.

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Shane van Gisbergen enters the final race as the last driver above the cutoff, with a 31-point cushion over Ryan Preece and 66 over Brad Keselowski, an advantage that could vanish in a single lap at Daytona if a multi-car crash occurs—something that is common at that high-speed oval.

The Cup Series regular season closes on Saturday at Daytona International Speedway with the night race that will award the final available spot among the 16, and with that result, the Chase will begin under very different conditions compared to the previous playoff format.

Dollar Tree 301 2026

Pos	Nº	driver	team	brand	time
1	#12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	-
2	#23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota	+0.59s
3	#21	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	+1.96s
4	#20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+7.64s
5	#5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	+9.62s
6	#54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+10.65s
7	#11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+12.32s
8	#45	Tyler Reddick	23XI Racing	Toyota	+12.38s
9	#60	Ryan Preece	RFK Racing	Ford	+13.59s
10	#4	Noah Gragson	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	+16.40s
11	#6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford	+17.19s
12	#2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	+19.17s
13	#38	Zane Smith	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	+27.47s
14	#22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	+27.85s
15	#48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	+28.03s
16	#71	Michael McDowell	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	+29.09s
17	#7	Daniel Suarez	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	+29.96s
18	#17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	+31.22s
19	#77	Carson Hocevar	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
20	#97	Shane Van Gisbergen	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
21	#34	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	+1 vuelta
22	#41	Cole Custer	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
23	#16	AJ Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
24	#33	Austin Hill(i)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
25	#9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
26	#19	Chase Briscoe	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	+1 vuelta
27	#10	Ty Dillon	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
28	#47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	HYAK Motorsports	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
29	#51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet	+1 vuelta
30	#24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	+5 vueltas
31	#40	John Hunter Nemechek	Legacy Motor Club	Toyota	+5 vueltas
32	#3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	+19 vueltas
33	#43	Erik Jones	Legacy Motor Club	Toyota	+50 vueltas
34	#35	Riley Herbst	23XI Racing	Toyota	+79 vueltas
35	#88	Connor Zilisch #	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet	+79 vueltas
36	#1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet	+260 vueltas