NASCAR Cup Playoffs: The Case for the 7 Drivers Vying for Final 3 Spots in Championship 4 Field

• Joey Logano has secured one of the four available spots in NASCAR's Championship 4 field, thanks to his win last week at Las Vegas.

• Look for championship contender Denny Hamlin to come big this weekend at Homestead.

• In 17 starts there for JGR, Hamlin has a record-tying three victories, five top-5 finishes, and 11 top-10s.

Former champion Joey Logano has settled safely into the upcoming Championship 4 round of NASCAR’s annual Cup Series Playoffs, leaving seven championship-eligible drivers to fight for three spots in the Nov. 6 season-finale near Phoenix.

Logano and those seven will be part of the 36-car field for Sunday afternoon’s Dixie Vodka 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in south Florida. By winning last weekend in Las Vegas, the Team Penske star locked himself into the championship-deciding showdown race. Regardless of what happens this weekend or Oct. 30 at Martinsville Speedway, the 2018 champion and consistent top-10 points finisher has no worries about getting to race for the Cup Series title at Phoenix.

The other seven in the Round of 8 championship field are winless Penske teammate Ryan Blaney, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell (each with 2 victories), Hendrick Motorsports drivers Chase Elliott (5) and William Byron (2), Stewart Haas driver Chase Briscoe (1), and Trackhouse star Ross Chastain (2).

Logano is atop the eight-driver standings with only Homestead and Martinsville remaining before the finale. Chastain is second-ranked, 21 points behind. Elliott trails by 22 points and Hamlin is 33 above the four-driver cutline. Byron is six points below the line, Briscoe is nine below, Blaney is minus-11 points, and Bell is 23 points below the cutline after an unfortunate outing last weekend in Las Vegas.

Homestead seems the perfect place for Hamlin to race his way into the Championship 4. In 17 starts there for JGR—only Logano’s 13 is close—the No. 11 Toyota driver has a record-tying three victories, five top-5 finishes, and 11 top-10s. He’s completed all but 5 of 4,541 possible laps in those 17 starts, a spectacular 99.9 percent completion rate. He’s been a lead-lap finisher in 15 of 17 races, but has led in only eight of them.

If recent performances mean anything, Briscoe must be feeling good about this weekend. Including the controversial last-lap help from Stewart Haas teammate Cole Custer to reach the Round of 8 after the Charlotte roval, Briscoe has been 10th, ninth, and fourth. That equals the best showing in recent weeks by any of the seven drivers looking to move ahead.

Everyone else been maddingly inconsistent in recent weeks: Hamlin has two fifths and a 13th, tying Briscoe with 23 “performance points;” Elliott has a victory and two finishes in the 20s; Chastain has two top-five finishes and a 37th; Logano has a victory, an 18th, and a 27th; Blaney has a second and two finishes in the 20s; Bell has a victory, a 17th, and a 34th, the latter coming when he was caught up in last week’s Bubba Wallace-Kyle Larson melee at Las Vegas; and Byron has three finishes between 12th and 16th.

Qualifying for the 267-lap race is Saturday afternoon. Two other Playoff races are on the HMS schedule: the Camping World Truck Series will run its Baptist Health Care 200 at 1 p.m. ET Saturday (Ryan Preece and Ben Rhodes will start from Row 1) and the Xfinity Series will run its Contender Boats 300 at 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

NASCAR Cup Playoff Standings

1. Joey Logano 4,084 points

2. Ross Chastain 4,063

3. Chase Elliott 4,062

4. Denny Hamlin 4,051

5. William Byron 4,045

6. Chase Briscoe 4,042

7. Ryan Blaney 4,040

8. Christopher Bell 4,028