Hendrick Motorsports' Chase Elliott became the second driver to secure his second victory of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, winning at Texas Motor Speedway for the second time since 2024 on Sunday afternoon.
Under the old "win and in" playoff format, which technically wasn't a win and in format since the 26-race regular season could produce more than 16 different winners, Elliott's Texas win would have officially secured him a playoff spot.
His win at Martinsville Speedway wouldn't have done it, since the playoff spots officially went to the regular season champion, whether he won a regular season race or not, and the 15 drivers who ranked highest in wins.
So this early in the season, drivers needed to have won at least twice to secure a spot, since there could only be 13 multi-race winners before the playoffs. Under the old format, Elliott would be locked in, along with 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, winner of five races already this year.
But this year, the 16 playoff spots are simply set to be awarded to the top 16 drivers in the regular season.
No NASCAR playoff spots locked up yet in 2026
That said, we're not going to pretend like Elliott isn't safe. He's third in the point standings, and he's 174 points above the playoff cut line. The other four winners, all of whom single-race winners, are all in good shape as well, with Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs being the lowest of the group in seventh place, still comfortably 95 points above the cutoff.
RFK Racing's Chris Buescher is the only non-winner in the top seven, and he's fifth in points.
All things considered, Elliott's win at Texas was arguably his strongest all-around performance in a long time, possibly since his series-leading five-win 2022 season.
He led the most laps on a 1.5-mile oval, and after placing second behind Hamlin at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he and the No. 9 team are clearly ahead of not only where they've been on intermediate tracks in recent years, but ahead of where their teammates and other Chevrolet drivers and teams are, amid their struggles to get up to speed with the new car body.
In the Next Gen era, Elliott has consistently been one of the sport's most consistent drivers. The knock on him was that his ceiling had dropped from actually winning races to collecting "good points days".
Now he's doing both.
What we saw on Sunday was something that we hadn't seen in years: a race in which Elliott was the clear driver to beat and won. He's won two races far earlier than he ever has in a season before, and he's done it after having endured multiple win droughts of over a year since October 2022.
And while it's still early, Elliott is currently the only driver with multiple wins in both 2025 and 2026. Over the past 10 and a half months, he's responsible for four of Hendrick Motorsports' six victories, and the 2026 season is the first since 2018 in which he earned the team's first two wins.
Watkins Glen International, where Elliott is a two-time winner, is scheduled to host the Go Bowling at The Glen this Sunday, May 10. Live coverage is set to be provided by Fox Sports 1 beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET, so begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!