{"id":180985,"date":"2025-08-27T23:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180985\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T23:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T23:44:10","slug":"nascar-insiders-predict-2025-nascar-playoffs-final-four-shut-out-surprising-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/180985\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders predict 2025 NASCAR playoffs final four, shut out surprising driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four NASCAR insiders have made their predictions on which four drivers will be competing in the NASCAR playoffs final four in November. On the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PQrYmw9zhnk&amp;t=2968s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Door Bumper Clear podcast,<\/a> T<strong>ommy Baldwin, Freddie Kraft, Karsyn Elledge<\/strong> and<strong> Jeff Gluck<\/strong> predicted the final four drivers for Cup Series Championship race a Phoenix. <\/p>\n<p>Baldwin picked <strong>Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, William Byron<\/strong> and a \u201ctoss-up\u201d between <strong>Chase Briscoe<\/strong> and <strong>Christopher Bell<\/strong>. Kraft went with Hamlin, Blaney, Byron and <strong>Bubba Wallace <\/strong>since he\u2019s the spotter for the No. 23 car. <\/p>\n<p>Elledge picked Byron, <strong>Kyle Larson<\/strong>, Hamlin and Blaney. She then made a switch and put in Briscoe instead of Larson. Gluck went with defending Cup Series champion <strong>Joey Logano,<\/strong> Blaney, Hamlin and Briscoe. He then talked about how they all shut out Larson and explained why he doesn\u2019t have any Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the final four.<\/p>\n<p>Can Team Penske make another run in the NASCAR playoffs? <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I finally learned it\u2019s about the tracks,\u201d Gluck, who writes for The Athletic, said. \u201cIt\u2019s not ever about season performance, and the tracks line up so, so well for Penske. I could even see<strong> [Austin] Cindric <\/strong>making it to the final four. \u2026How can you not think they\u2019re going to be a force at Gateway, at New Hampshire? They\u2019re going to be formidable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The interesting thing about Penske is that the team has won the last three Cup Series championships. Logano won it in 2022 and last year, while Blaney won it in 2023. All four insiders picked Blaney to be in the final four because he\u2019s arguably the hottest driver in NASCAR. Blaney has recorded top-10 finishes in the last six races, including a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/pro\/news\/ryan-blaney-wins-coke-zero-400-in-four-wide-photo-finish-after-epic-final-lap-at-daytona\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">win at Daytona last weekend. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hendrick Motorsports has four full-time Cup Series drivers (Larson, Byron, <strong>Chase Elliott<\/strong> and <strong>Alex Bowman<\/strong>), and all four are in the playoffs. Larson and Elliott have won the Cup Series title before (Larson in 2021 and Elliott in 2020), while Byron won the regular-season title this year. Bowman clinched the final playoff spot after Blaney won the Daytona race. We\u2019ll find out if these drivers can survive the playoffs, which begin at Darlington on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four NASCAR insiders have made their predictions on which four drivers will be competing in the NASCAR playoffs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":180986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-180985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115103391030367128","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}