Kyle Larson took the NASCAR Cup Series championship lead following Bristol and then extended it with a dominating performance at Kansas this past weekend, but he believes there are still some tweaks that NASCAR should make to the Chase playoff format and specifically with stage points.

Through the first four races of the Chase, Larson has not finished outside of the top 5. He finished fifth at Darlington, second at Bristol, and won at World Wide Technology Raceway and Kansas. He has an average finish of 2.25. On top of the excellent finishes, he’s racked up the most stage points out of all drivers with 58. Denny Hamlin is the closest to him on that front with 46. The maximum number of stage points one could earn so far is 80. Combining his finishes with his stage points, Larson has earned a total of 237 points so far.

With his performance, he now has a 26 point lead over Denny Hamlin as the series heads to Las Vegas.

Despite Larson racking up the stage points and benefiting from them, he believes that NASCAR might want to look at that part of the Chase format and make some tweaks to it. In an appearance on the Dale Jr. Download, Larson relayed, “I think the objective is to be up front all race long not just finishing well. As you’ve seen, stage points have been ultra important. Selfishly, for a team that has been running up front all race long, yeah, it’s been great.”

“But then I also look at a Ryan Preece. I don’t think he’s been out of the top 10 yet in the Chase, but I bet he’s in the single digits in stage points earned. He’s still buried in points,” Larson said. “I’m not asking for changes every year to the format, but I still think there’s some tweaks that could be made. I do believe that stage points are potentially too important.”

While he would like to see some tweaks to stage points, Larson shared how he prefers this format to the previous playoff format and how it also puts to rest whether or not the title was actually earned.

“But It’s still been a nice change of pace compared to what the playoffs were,” he said. “Whoever ends up winning the championship at the end of the year, I think everybody can agree that they were a deserving champion, where in the last few years there’s always been an argument on that. Kudos to the change. I think it’s been fun. I think the pressure of it has been a lot of fun.”

“But I still think there are some things to look at to make it even more pure and authentic, which as true racers is what we would hopefully want,” Larson concluded.

To Larson’s point, Ryan Preece is currently 14th in the Chase standings, 173 points behind. He finished 17th at World Wide Technology Raceway and had three 10th place finishes at Darlington, Bristol, and Kansas. His average finish is 11.75. In contrast to Larson, Preece has not earned a lot of stage points. Through four races he’s only earned 8. Only two drivers have fewer than him, his teammate Chris Buescher has only earned one and Daniel Suarez has not earned any. In total he’s only earned 109 points. Without the stage points, Preece would still be 14th, but he would only be down 123 points.

In fact, the whole field would be a lot tighter. Larson would remain in the lead, but would only have a 14 point advantage over Hamlin. Bell, who is currently in 3rd 50 points behind, would only be 36 behind. Suarez, who is currently 16th, 187 points behind, would still be in 16th, but only 129 behind.

The one driver that the removal of stage points might affect the most negatively aside from Larson would be Ryan Blaney. Blaney is currently fifth, 91 points behind, but he’s racked up the third most stage points with 45. If the stage points were removed Blaney would drop to 7th in the standings, but he would only be 78 points back.

Now, obviously the rest of the field understands the importance of stage points as well and nothing is stopping them from trying to maximize those points to win the championship. However, due to the significant role the stage points are playing, the race strategy has clearly focused on getting them. It’s one Larson and his team have been pursuing as he made it abundantly clear that you have to be up front all day. 

And obviously, it’s not just Larson, Ryan Blaney previously acknowledged it as well, “I do know that stage points are really important. We put a lot of emphasis on it. If they weren’t, we would focus more on the end of the race. But really, I could go either way on that subject.”

Larson’s call to tweak stage points is not new. He previously told Motorsport.com earlier this month that he prefers getting rid of them altogether even though he’s benefited the most from them this year.

“I think this format really rewards consistency,” Larson said. “But I guess it rewards consistency throughout the whole race, where I think if we really wanted to get back to the authentic part of our sport that we used to have, I think going off of just finishes would be the most authentic way to crown a champion at the end of the year.”

He added, “This is coming from somebody who is up there in stage points, as well, throughout the season. Without stage points, we would be further down. I don’t even know if we’d be in the Chase without stage points.”

“So, yeah, I think I’m open to it. And I don’t know if they would make a change or not while still having stages, but yeah, I think stages, they seem to just be crazy important, which it is what it is.”

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