NASCAR announced that the Chase will return as its new championship moving forward in 2026.

In a press conference, NASCAR President Steve O’Donnell stated, “Where we’ve landed, candidly, the Chase is back. We are going to back to a format where on the Cup side the first 26 races will be based on [a] points system and the final 10 races will make up the Chase.”

There will only be 9 races for the O’Reilly series and seven for the Truck series.

The Chase will include 16 drivers in the Cup Series. For the O’Reilly series it will 12 and 10 in the Trucks. As for how the points will be set in the Chase for those drivers, O’Donnell explained, “The points leader will go into the Chase at 2100 points. It was important for us to have a bonus for that leader. So they’ll have a 25-point lead over second place, and a 35-point lead over third place, and positions beyond that will go down by 5 points.”

Additionally, O’Donnell shared that NASCAR will grant more points for winning races while a graphic on the screen revealed that NASCAR is doing away with the win and you’re in policy. Drivers will receive 55 points up from 40 points for a win. He explained, “I believe that will be a great incentive for the drivers each and every race to go out there and perform, but also go for wins.”

After thanking Mark Martin for standing up for a full-season championship, O’Donnell claimed returning to the Chase is about getting “back to who we are. That’s the core of NASCAR and want to launch this and we’re really excited about the 2026 season.”

In a separate statement shared on NASCAR.com, O’Donnell said, “The biggest thing was looking at who we wanted to be as a sport going forward, and that included really a focus on our core fan base and who had been with us for a long, long time and gotten the sport to where it was. So we wanted our future format to reflect that. A lot of things you’re going to see and how we talked to the fans, from an overall NASCAR standpoint, was going to really embrace that hardcore fan, and so we felt like the format needed to absolutely reflect that.”

Martin reacted to the announcement describing it as “the most perfect compromise you could ask for.” He explained, “It’s going to require our 2026 champion to be lightning fast and incredibly consistent and that’s what we can all get behind. So I’m really excited. I think it’s fantastic. And I just appeal to the race fans, but especially the classic fans, who say to me, ‘I don’t watch more.’ I say, ‘We need you. Come on back. We’re headed in the right direction. And come back and join with us and we’ll keep making progress.'”

He also called on the sport and the media to focus on the sport’s heroes, “We need to focus even more on our heroes. These guys behind me that are winning these races are our Pearsons, and our Yarboroughs, and our Buddy Bakers of today. And we need our fans to connect with these guys. We need them to connect with the crew chiefs. We need them to connect with the engineers as well. Give the fans something they can connect to and help us build these superstars like they deserve to be.”

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