Chase Briscoe locked up a playoff spot Sunday night by winning at Darlington Raceway. He took one of the final three spots in the 16-driver field and capped off a turnaround by Mustang Dark Horse drivers.
While Ford Performance started the season slowly, the manufacturer has since put the most drivers into the playoffs. Six drivers represent Ford while Toyota and Chevrolet each have five. This matches last season, a year that ended with Ford winning its second straight championship.
2024 playoff field:
- Ryan Blaney (Ford)
- Brad Keselowski (Ford)
- Joey Logano (Ford)
- Austin Cindric (Ford)
- Harrison Burton (Ford)
- Chase Briscoe (Ford)
- Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
- William Byron (Chevrolet)
- Alex Bowman (Chevrolet)
- Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
- Daniel Suarez (Chevrolet)
- Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
- Ty Gibbs (Toyota)
- Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
- Christopher Bell (Toyota)
- Tyler Reddick (Toyota)
The 2024 season began with two of the three manufacturers debuting new bodies. Toyota introduced the Camry XSE while Ford introduced the Mustang Dark Horse. Chevrolet kept the Camaro ZL1 after winning 50% of the races last season.
This season featured early dominance by two of these manufacturers as Chevrolet drivers won the first three Cup races and seven of the first 12 races. Toyota drivers won five of the first 12 races.
Ford drivers, for comparison, were in contention for top-10 and top-five finishes, but they fell short of victory lane while adapting to the Mustang Dark Horse.
"There were some things that we found that we don't think are realistic, for good and bad," Brad Keselowski said at Martinsville in April. "And I think we've got a mitigation plan around them that will come into effect in the next few weeks, and hopefully show improvement for us."
The 2012 Cup Series champion was correct in his assessment. Five weeks after addressing Ford Performance's slow start to the season, he scored the Blue Oval's first win. He captured the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway in early May and locked up a playoff spot.
Ford drivers continued to showcase this improvement as the series went through May and headed into the summer. Austin Cindric won at Gateway two weeks after Keselowski snapped the winless streak.
Ryan Blaney then won at Iowa Speedway and Pocono Raceway while Joey Logano won the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and the wild, five-overtime affair at Nashville Superspeedway.
Chevrolet and Toyota got back to their winning ways as the end of the regular season approached, but Ford Performance was not yet done. The Blue Oval drivers had two more shocking wins in the chamber.
Harrison Burton delivered the first. He entered Daytona, the penultimate race of the regular season, outside the top 30 in points. He then won his way into the playoffs in stunning fashion after getting the better of Kyle Busch and multiple other Cup champions.
Burton's win shocked the series and NASCAR fans, and it served as a fitting appetizer for the regular-season finale at Darlington.
The Southern 500 was a race full of intrigue. The points battle between Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace, and Chris Buescher was the prominent storyline early, especially after Martin Truex Jr. crashed on Lap 2.
The discussion focused on each bubble driver and what they needed to do to lock up one of the three remaining spots. Could Wallace finish 12 spots ahead of Buescher? Would one of these drivers eliminate Truex, who entered the weekend with a 58-point cushion?
However, that points battle no longer mattered at the end of the race. The final laps were all about Briscoe and Busch, two drivers seeking their first win this season. Briscoe prevailed after a frantic finish, and he became the sixth Ford Performance driver to punch his ticket to the playoffs.
Briscoe secured an opportunity to pursue a championship in Stewart-Haas Racing's final season, and he ensured that the Mustang Dark Horse would have a numbers advantage heading into the Round of 16.