As NASCAR gets ready for the 2025 season, two insiders gave their opinions on factors that should determine a champion. On The Teardown podcast , Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic answered a question from a fan who asked how do you define a champion?
“It’s really hard because there’s some years where the champion is the best driver and the worthiest driver, and honestly, there’s years where that’s not the case,” Bianchi said. “There’s been a guy who’s won 10 races and didn’t win the championship. …It’s almost on a case-by-case basis. I don’t know how else you could do it. You can’t make an overall sweeping generalization of well, this is what I believe. I don’t think that’s the case. It really is on a year-by-year basis and I know it when I see it.”
Gluck said that Kyle Larson was NASCAR’s driver of the year for 2024 despite not winning the championship. Larson had the most points and led all drivers with wins during the Cup Season.
More on the NASCAR Champion debate
“That to me is what you would think of as your champion, driver of the year,” Gluck said. “There’s some years where the driver of the year is a little murkier because it’s like okay, well this guy had so many wins but he wasn’t so consistent, this guy was more consistent. That’s fine because that’s what your playoff system is for to determine that under the rules…