BRISTOL, Tenn. -- The first round of the Cup Series playoffs is complete, and the points have reset ahead of the Round of 12. This means that Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are once again in control of the standings.
Larson, who locked up seven more playoff points during a dominant win at Bristol, is in the best position heading to Kansas where he won in the spring. He is 39 points above the Round of 8 elimination line.
Bell is just behind Larson at 24 points to the good. Regular-season champion Tyler Reddick is next in the Cup standings. He has a 20-point cushion as he tries to win for the second time at Kansas Speedway.
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The drivers behind this trio are much closer to the cutline than they would prefer entering the Round of 12. William Byron is only 14 points to the good while reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney is 11 points to the good. Denny Hamlin (+7), Chase Elliott (+6), and Joey Logano (+4) are the other drivers above the initial Round of 8 cutline.
"It's all offense from this point forward," Hamlin said after Saturday night's Bristol race. "So yeah, we're going to Kansas, a track we've been really good at, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the run."
The drivers in immediate danger of playoff elimination are Austin Cindric (-4), Daniel Suarez (-6), Alex Bowman (-7), and Chase Briscoe (-7). These deficits are by no means insurmountable, especially during a round featuring another superspeedway and another road course.
These drivers can flip the standings early with strong performances. This is exactly what Bowman and Cindric did in the first race of the Round of 16. They scored 16 and 19 stage points, respectively, before delivering top-10 finishes.
These two drivers then continued by delivering points-heavy performances at Watkins Glen and Bristol, which helped them avoid early elimination from the playoffs.
"That's what we needed in this round, racing within our limits," Cindric said after advancing at Bristol. "And no reason why we can't do the same thing in the next. I think that's what it's going to take to move on to the round of 8."