Below The Cutline: Bowman, Berry Likely in Must-Win Situation

David Rosenblum, NKP for Ford Racing

Two races down, and only one remaining in the opening round of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. After Darlington Raceway and last weekend's event at World Wide Technology Raceway, Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin have secured their places in the Round of 12 of the Playoffs via wins. Now, we've reached an uncomfortable time for four drivers, as they enter an elimination weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway below the cutline.

Standings: NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Grid After WWT Raceway

Let's start with the drivers, who look relatively safe heading into this weekend's race around the 0.533-mile high-banked short track in Tennessee.

Kyle Larson, who finished 12th at Gateway, finds himself 60 points above the cutline heading into Saturday night's race, which has him one point away from being locked into the field. So long as Larson doesn't finish last in the race, he will advance, barring a disqualification or some oddball mid-week points penalty.

Likewise, Bubba Wallace, who has started the Playoffs with back-to-back top-10 finishes, also appears to be quite safe at 50 points above the cutline. It would take some seriously strange happenings in the Night Race, which have been few and far between the last couple of years, for Wallace and the No. 23 23XI Racing team to get bounced from the Playoffs in the opening round.

In all, six drivers are sitting more than 30 points above the cutline heading into Bristol, which means, barring an early-race catastrophe, Ryan Blaney (+42), William Byron (+39), Tyler Reddick (+37), and Christopher Bell (+32) should be good to go. Things get a little more nerve-racking for Chase Elliott (+28), Joey Logano (+21), Ross Chastain (+19), and Austin Cindric (+11), but they all have the luxury of controlling their own destinies heading into the final race of the Round of 16.

The four drivers below the cutline don't have that luxury, at all.

Austin Dillion (11 Points Below the Cutline)

Austin Dillon enters the final race of the Round of 16 of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs as the first driver outside the cutline at 11 points outside looking in. And while many didn't expect Dillon and the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team to make it into the Playoffs, much less find themselves in a position to have a fighting chance of advancing, here they are.

And if Dillon does advance into the Round of 12 on Saturday night at Bristol, he can circle a frustrating weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway as a reason why.

The driver of the iconic No. 3 Chevrolet, his crew chief Richard Boswell, and the entire team never relented, no matter how bleak the fight appeared in Sunday's race. Dillon struggled with an ill-handling race car for the majority of the event, evidenced by the driver unintentionally spinning his brother Ty Dillon out early in the event.

However, Boswell reached into his strategic bag of tricks and chose to leave Dillon out on the race track during a yellow flag round of pit stops late in Stage 2, which netted the No. 3 team valuable track position. Dillon would hold on to finish Stage 2 in the sixth position, which allowed him to pocket five valuable championship points.

The strategic calls down the stretch placed Dillon inside the top-15 in the closing laps with a chance to pull out a decent finish on what had been a horrendous day. In the end, the driver of the No. 3 machine came home with an 18th-place finish, which placed him ahead of five fellow Playoff drivers.

Dillon was disappointed with the No. 3 car's performance at Gateway, but was proud they were able to get what they got on Sunday.

“We didn’t come here with a good race car for some reason. All of our cars were pretty off today, we just missed it," Dillon stated. But this No. 3 Dow DayGlo Chevrolet team did a great job executing with what we had. We got stage points and finished the best we possibly could right there. We outran our day by a lot, so hard work and execution give us a shot at Bristol (Motor Speedway). Just feel like we’ve missed some opportunities and could be in a better position, but we did all we could today.”

Thanks to the Stage Points, Dillon walked out of an abysmal race at Gateway with the 14th-most points earned of any driver on the track. If he advances this weekend, the fact that they were able to salvage 24 points in the Enjoy Illinois 300 will be a major component in the equation.

Shane Van Gisbergen (15 Points Below the Cutline)

After Shane van Gisbergen piled up four road course wins during the regular season, there were some that figured he'd have enough Playoff Points amassed to potentially work his way through the opening round of the Playoffs. Especially, when you factored in that Darlington, SVG's favorite oval, was among the three races in the Round of 16.

However, van Gisbergen struggled mightily at Darlington Raceway and finished 32nd. That put him in a vulnerable spot heading into Sunday's race at World Wide Technology Raceway, and the pressure was on to perform.

And, SVG did run decently well early in the race. However, things unraveled after the driver spun out, and as the day went on, van Gisbergen sustained more damage on his No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. In the end, he scored a 25th-place result, and he fell to 15 points outside of the Playoffs cutline.

“We were too tight in traffic, and then eventually got on the other side of it, and I made an error and spun," van Gisbergen explained. "We just couldn’t get it back. We weren’t amazing. We were probably a 15th-place car, but then detuned it a little bit and ended up where we did. [A] little frustrating, but it’s kind of where we’re at. 20th and 15th [are] huge improvements for us, but obviously, in the playoffs, you expect more. There’s that pressure there.”

While 15 points doesn't sound like a lot, he now heads to Bristol Motor Speedway, a track that is not easy to handle for oval racing novices. SVG retired from the Spring race at Bristol with suspension issues after running just 208 laps. It's going to take an unexpected and likely Hurculean effort from van Gisbergen at Bristol to advance to the Round of 12.

Alex Bowman (35 Points Below the Cutline)

In what has been a very hot, and cold 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season for Alex Bowman, and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team, they have gone ice cold at the complete wrong time.

After compiling seven top-10 finishes over the final 11 races of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, Bowman entered the Playoffs as one of the hottest performing drivers in the series. However, now that the Playoffs have arrived, the No. 48 team has stumbled out of the gates.

It all starts with qualifying. Bowman qualified 29th at Darlington Raceway and 25th last weekend at Gateway. Those efforts on Saturday put the driver behind the eight ball to begin Sunday's races. However, through strategic, and sheer determination, Bowman and crew chief Blake Harris were able to work themselves into contention in points of both races.

However, poor execution on pit road, the race track, and everywhere in between in the final half of the races have cost them dearly. Bowman came home a subpar 31st at Darlington, and at Gateway, he suffered a rough pit stop, where his car fell off the jack, and then a pit road speeding penalty later in the race, which completely doomed any hope for a comeback. Bowman finished 26th.

"It was just really poor execution on all angles today. It was a bummer," Bowman anguished. "I thought our No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was OK once we were kind of towards the front-half. We just struggled in the back. Super frustrating, but all we can do is keep digging. There [are] a lot of people working really hard to continue to be better. I thought, racecar-wise, we were heading in the right direction once we had some air on it. We just have to go to Bristol (Motor Speedway) and go to work.”

Now, he heads into Bristol Motor Speedway, where he scored a pole and led 39 laps before an engine failure in the Spring, in a virtual must-win situation if he hopes to keep his Playoff dreams rolling for another round.

Josh Berry (45 Points Below the Cutline)

While Bowman has had a subpar Playoff run, no driver has been as snakebitten by luck through the opening two races of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16 as Josh Berry.

The driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford, who is making his first appearance in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, qualified third for the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, and it looked like he'd be a threat to win heading into the race.

Those thoughts lasted all of one corner. Berry's car was set up too low, which caused him to bottom out heavily in Turn 1, which sent him spinning and crashing into the outside wall. Berry would finish dead-last.

Fast forward to Gateway, and it was more of the same.

He did make it through the opening lap, this time. But he didn't make it much further past that. To be clear, this was no fault of Berry, but on the 36th lap of Sunday's Enjoy Illinois 300, he found himself racing to the inside of Joey Logano, when Chase Elliott opted to dive to the bottom of the track to make it three-wide into Turn 1.

Elliott would slide up, make contact, and that would send Berry hard into the outside wall. Immediately, his day was over, and he was once again the last-place finisher. While it was another unfortunate ending, Berry didn't feel Elliott intended to spin him out.

“It's just been a tough couple of weeks for the Motorcraft/ Quick Lane Ford Mustang. I feel like we have had decent cars. We’ve just had issues. Today, you pit there and it's just a chaotic restart. You’re just trying to wait for everything to settle out. The 9 got in there, got a little loose, and just slid up, and he got into us. Obviously, I don’t think that was intentional or anything. It was just a racing deal, and unfortunately, we were just on the receiving end,” Berry explained.

Now, Berry is staring up at a 45-point deficit to the cutline. It's a large mountain to climb, and like Bowman, it'll likely take a win in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race for him to advance to the Round of 12.