NASCAR championship standings 2019: Final 4 drivers set for Cup Series title race at Homestead

Tom Gatto

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NASCAR championship standings 2019: Final 4 drivers set for Cup Series title race at Homestead image

NASCAR has its Championship 4 for the 2019 Monster Energy Cup Series season. Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch will compete for the title Nov. 17 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the playoff and season finale.

Hamlin and Busch qualified for the final by finishing 1-2 at ISM Raceway outside Phoenix on Sunday. Hamlin needed to win to get in, and he charged to the victory with a strong late run. Busch's second-place finish pushed him well past Joey Logano for the final position in the Championship 4.

The Championship 4 race is guaranteed to be dramatic, and all four drivers should be racing up front for most of the afternoon and evening. Harvick, Truex, Busch and Hamlin rank second through fifth, respectively, in driver rating at Homestead-Miami. Each has won at the track, too: Hamlin twice, and Busch, Harvick and Truex once each.

Sporting News has all the information you need heading into NASCAR's 2019 Championship 4 race, the EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. 

NASCAR championship standings 2019

Rank Driver Wins Points
No. 1 Denny Hamlin 6 5,000
No. 2
 Kevin Harvick 4 5,000
No. 3
 Martin Truex Jr. 7 5,000
No. 4 Kyle Busch 4 5,000
No. 5 Joey Logano 2 2,344
No. 6 Kyle Larson 1 2,321
No. 7 Ryan Blaney 1 2,303
No. 8 Brad Keselowski 3 2,299
No. 9 William Byron 0 2,270
No. 10 Clint Bowyer 0 2,254
No. 11 Chase Elliott 3 2,253
No. 12 Alex Bowman 1 2,229
No. 13 Kurt Busch 1 2,221
No. 14 Aric Almirola 0 2,219
No. 15 Ryan Newman 0 2,189
No. 16 Erik Jones 1 2,157
No. 17 Daniel Suarez 0 823
No. 18 Jimmie Johnson 0 807
No. 19 Paul Menard 0 757
No. 20 Chris Buescher 0 708
No. 21 Matt DiBenedetto 0 682
No. 22 Austin Dillon 0 670
No. 23 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 0 661
No. 24 Ty Dillon 0 600
No. 25 Daniel Hemric 0 505
No. 26 Ryan Preece 0 495
No. 27 Michael McDowell 0 474
No. 28 Bubba Wallace 0 434
No. 29 Corey LaJoie 0 395
No. 30 David Ragan 0 378
No. 31 Matt Tifft 0 352
No. 32 Reed Sorenson 0 117
No. 33 Quin Houff 0 77
No. 34 Jamie McMurray 0 19
No. 35 Austin Theriault 0 17
No. 36 Andy Seuss 0 9
No. 37 Blake Jones 0 6
No. 38 Stanton Barrett 0 2

NASCAR Final 4 drivers

Martin Truex Jr.

Truex secured his spot in the final by blowing away the field at Martinsville in the first race of the Round of 8. The 2017 Cup champion led 464 of the 500 laps at the Virginia short track. He won at Homestead to seal his title two years ago.

Kevin Harvick

Harvick, who won the Cup title in 2014 with his victory at Homestead, was next to get in this year with a victory at Texas on Nov. 3. For those looking ahead to next week, he has the best aveage finish (5.6) at the track within the Championship 4 group over the past 14 races there.

Denny Hamlin

Hamlin became the third automatic qualifier when he dominated the final stage and won the third Round of 8 race. Now he can set his sights on winning his first Cup championship after years of near-misses. 

Kyle Busch

Busch, the 2015 champion thanks to his win at Homestead, followed in Hamlin's tire tracks to the checkered flag at Phoenix and put himself in position to race for a second title.

How the NASCAR playoffs work

Sixteen NASCAR drivers qualified for the playoffs. Four were eliminated in the Sept. 29 race at Charlotte. Four more were eliminated in the Oct. 20 race at Kansas, and four more fell out at Phoenix, leaving the final four drivers to compete straight up for for the NASCAR Cup title Nov. 17 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The first of the four playoff drivers to cross the finish line is crowned the champion.

How drivers earn points:

  • Win Stage 1 or Stage 2 in a race: 1 playoff point (point awarded per stage win)
  • Win a race: 5 playoff points
  • Win the regular-season championship: 15 playoff points

Second place in the final regular-season standings earns 10 playoff points, third place receives eight points, and the points awarded decline to one point for 10th (4th = 7 points, 5th = 6 points, etc.).

Championship-contending drivers can accumulate additional playoff points throughout the playoffs via stage and race wins and may use all the playoff points they earn, from both the regular season and the playoffs, to advance all the way up to the Championship 4.

Playoff points are added to a championship-contending driver’s reset points total at the start of every round of the playoffs until they are eliminated from championship contention.

At Homestead-Miami, playoff points are off the table, and the Championship 4 drivers enter the “winner-take-all” race tied in the standings. 

Cup playoff information courtesy of  NASCAR .

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.