How does NASCAR Owner's Championship work? All you need to know
Like every other championship, the entity with the highest points claims the victory, and the NASCAR owner's championship is no different. The NASCAR owner's championship is similar to the driver's championship. However, the points are awarded to each individual car under an owner.
In NASCAR, there are three categories for a championship. The Driver, the Owner, and the Manufacturer. While there are a number of drivers who fight against each other for the ultimate trophy, three renowned manufacturers, Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota, deliver the OEMs.
As for the owners, they are calculated on individual drivers' entries. If two drivers drive the same numbered car and collect points, they are going to count under that particular team. At the end of the season, the owner with the most number of points wins the championship.
Notably, this is very different from Formula 1's Constructors' championship format, where every team has two cars, and the team with the most points wins the title. In NASCAR, a team can have as many as four cars, whereas the other can have just one.
Since the charter distribution is not the same, NASCAR ruled the owner championship to be counted single-handedly. For instance, if Driver A becomes the champion ahead of Driver B, the owner of Team A will become the owner's champion.
This will be applicable even if the owner of team B has multiple drivers racing under it, and has more points than team A collectively. Therefore, a driver is very crucial in NASCAR both for the Drivers' Championship and the Owners' Championship.
2024 NASCAR Owner Championship scenario
Ahead of the final race at Phoenix Raceway this weekend, as many as four teams are in contention for the owner title — the #12 Team Penske, the #22 Team Penske, the #45 23XI Racing, and #24 Hendrick Motorsports.
Following Blaney's victory at the recently concluded Martinsville Speedway, he secured his place in the top eight and joined the group of Logano, Reddick, and Byron.
With this, he brought his team #12 Team Penske right on the top. While Team Penske has two drivers, Logano and Blaney, they are two different teams, and will not count as two.
Martin Truex Jr. of Joe Gibbs Racing claimed the pole position in his final Cup Series race of his career. Team Penske's Joey Logano starts from second place, while HMS' Byron starts from eighth.
Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing is further down to 10th place, seven places ahead of the Xfinity 500 winner of last weekend Ryan Blaney.
In a nutshell, Team Penske, 23XI Racing (the winner of the regular season championship), and Hendrick Motorsports will fight all out today when the final race of the season starts at Phoenix.