Does NASCAR’s Qualifying Metric Unfairly Penalize Drivers Who Have One Bad Race?

Drivers talk about NASCAR’s Qualifying Metric every week, even though they may not mention it by name. One might note he’s at a disadvantage this week because he was knocked out of last week’s race early. Another may be thankful he is (this week, at least) in the second practice/qualifying group. Drivers may even mention ‘the metric.’

But what is ‘the metric’? Does it matter where a team qualifies and practices? And is the current qualifying metric the best NASCAR can use?

Qualifying Order Matters

With 36+ cars qualifying each week, someone has to decide which car gets to practice and qualify when. That might not seem like a big deal, but it can be.

• The first cars to practice do so on a cold track with less rubber on it. The track condition are much less like they will be during the race, so what the team learns from practice might not be as applicable to the race.
• Track temperature changes, even over the course of an hour, which is how long a typical practice takes. Practice takes an hour and qualifying anywhere from 45 minutes on up.
• Qualifying order also determines practice group, so where you will qualify determines which cars you will practice with. The second group gets the advantage of having watched the first group practice.

How NASCAR Determines Qualifying Order

NASCAR has tried all manner of schemes to determine qualifying order: random draws, slowest practice speed to fastest practice speed, owner’s points, and multiple qualifying metrics. The strategy changes to take issues like charters or guaranteed starting spots into account. The goal, of course, is to be as fair as possible.

Fairness eliminates setting qualifying order based on metrics like practice speeds. NASCAR tried this and — surprise — teams manipulated their practice to try to get the qualifying spot they wanted. While random draw is appealing, you quickly end up with cases in which two drivers vying for the first spot in the rankings get very disparate qualifying spots. One driver ends up back in the field, already starting the race at a disadvantage.

Back in the day, NASCAR used a random draw to determine qualifying position. They made a few changes, like separating out cars that were guaranteed in and those that weren’t, so that the competition was more head-to-head at times when there were more cars qualifying than would make the race.

NASCAR has tried single-car qualifying, knockout qualifying… I could write a whole article on the history of NASCAR qualifying. For now, though, let’s just note that, since 2020, NASCAR has cars practice and qualify in two groups at non-superspeedway ovals. Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega have no practice, except for the Daytona 500, but qualifying is done as one group. Road courses have group qualifying.

But each of these schemes depends on the Qualifying Metric.

Qualifying Metric v1

The current qualifying procedures originated in 2020, when NASCAR had to minimize track activity due to COVID. The problems inherent in random draws led NASCAR to develop the original Qualifying Metric in August of 2020. The graphic below shows the qualifying metric components.

This qualifying metric used both car/owner stats AND driver’s stats. The car/owner numbers were 60% of the metric and the driver numbers were the other 40%. It took into account

• The owner’s points rank
• The car’s finish in the last race
• The driver’s finish in the last race (not always the same as the car’s finish)
• The driver’s fastest lap in the last race.

The resulting scores range from 1 to the number of drivers ranked in the season. Lower is better, just like finishing position.

So 65% of the original metric depends on the last race results and 35% on season-long performance.

Qualifying Metric v2

This metric was admittedly a little confusing to fans, media and sometimes the drivers. Because it used drivers’ stats, any car with multiple drivers was at a disadvantage. That’s not an issue in the Cup Series, but could be in the ORAPS and Trucks, which also use this procedure to determine qualifying order.

NASCAR updated the qualifying metric in 2025. I’ve diagrammed the current scheme below.

Only the car’s stats determine the new Qualifying Metric. But now 70% of the metric depends on where the car finished in the last race and only 30% depends on owner point standings. So the majority of qualifying order is determined by the last race results.

Does the Qualifying Metric Disadvantage Drivers with One Bad Race?

To answer this question, I plotted qualifying metric scores as bars for each week of the season. I added the car’s rank coming into that week as red circles.

The break between group 1 and group 2 is between 19 and 21, but to clarify which scores landed in which groups, I colored the practice/qualifying sessions where they were assigned to the first group green and those where they landed in the second group blue. Superspeedway races are grey since there are no groups, but the metric is still used to determine the qualifying order.

Let’s start by looking at the plot for the No. 1 car of Ross Chastain. I pick on Chastain only because the No. 1 car processes first in my program.

So far, so good, I’d say. He seems to end up in the right group each week, more or less. And that’s the case with a good number of drivers in the group, as you can see from the rotating graphs below.

These examples all seem to suggest that the metric does it’s job. And it mostly does.

But…

But — and there always is a but — exceptions exist. I didn’t notice them until I went back and looked at 2025. The metric works well when drivers are consistent. In 2025, Kyle Larson was really inconsistent. He’s better this year, but back luck, especially at superspeedways, has created some degree of inconsistency in 2026 as well. Here’s his graph.

Take a look at what happened after Talladega. Larson finished 40th after being caught up in a crash. But that finish only dropped him from fifth in the overall rankings to sixth. So the next week, we have the sixth-best driver in the standings going out sixth, after part-time driver Corey Heim, Cole Custer, Joey Logano, Josh Berry and Chad Finchum. Larson still qualified 11th, so it doesn’t look like this blip ruined anything.

But look at Larson’s record last year, especially toward the end of the regular season.

As Larson battled for his positioning in the Playoffs, he ended up in group 2 in two out of his last three regular-season races. While he was ranked third and fifth overall! That doesn’t seem like the qualifying metric is quite doing its job, does it?

Just one more graph, and that’s because I had forgotten what an exceptional regular season William Byron had last year. Here is his graph from 2025.

After the second Atlanta race, the top-ranked driver in the series ended up in the second group. Wha…?

This is due to an issue we’ve discussed quite a bit: Points standings move around a lot in the early races, but it takes a lot more to move the needle as the total points accumulated gets larger.

NASCAR recognizes this: They change qualifying procedures after the regular season so that the drivers still in the Playoffs/Chase always qualify after the other drivers, in as close proximity to each other as possible.

Should the Qualifying Metric Change?

OK, I sort of get it. Maybe a really good driver should be able to overcome a crappy qualifying spot.

But my views on rules are motivated by a single goal: I want every team to compete at their best. That’s why I’m pro-practice. That’s why I think the qualifying metric could be tweaked just a little.

On the other hand, I hate to a driver taking a hit because he happened to be caught up in someone else’s wreck. Especially as we near the end of the regular season. Drivers at the top of the rankings are battling for the regular-season championship and, ultimately, the championship.

Drivers near the cut off are fighting to make the Chase, which is a Big Deal, too. Some drivers’ contracts provide a bonus for being one of the 16 who goes on. Making that group is a precondition for further employment for some drivers.

I see two possible changes:

1. Change the ratio of season rank to last-race finish so that a driver’s season-long performance counts for a little more. I don’t know that 60/40 is enough. Maybe 50/50.
2. Instead of using just the last race finish, used an average of the last three race finishes. For a driver with one bad race, that could make the difference between group A and group B. A driver with two bad races would still be impacted the way NASCAR wants.

The problem is that more accuracy usually means more complex. I like the second solution better, but some people view a three-race average as Too Much Math.

What do you think? Leave your ideas in the comments!