Dale Earnhardt Jr. Declares Playoffs Format “Betrayed” NASCAR After 2025 finale drama
Dale Earnhardt Jr. boldly claimed that the playoffs format once again betrayed the fans and drivers and robbed the deserving driver of the title win.
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. (via Imago)
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. has fired some shots at NASCAR’s playoff formats following the controversial end to both the Cup Series and Xfinity championships. The playoff format is already a massive talking point within NASCAR, and the 2025 season has only further fueled these debates. As such, even the Hall of Famer has criticized the current format and how it betrayed the championship finalists of their title wins.
In the Xfinity Series, Connor Zilisch entered as the winningest driver and should have won the title based on stats. However, he couldn’t quite win the championship finale at Phoenix against Jesse Love and eventually lost the title because of one poor race. Meanwhile, in the Cup Series, Denny Hamlin was the favorite to win the title as he was again the winningest driver this year.
Similar to the Xfinity Series, Denny Hamlin was caught up in a poor pit strategy because of William Byron‘s crash and caution, and hence lost the title win to Kyle Larson. Now, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who did not win any titles in the current playoff format, has criticized it. The 51-year-old is extremely disappointed with how the title wins played out in both the NASCAR series and called for changes.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. boldly claimed that the playoff format betrayed the fans and drivers very badly. Dale Jr. accepted that he was trying to understand the root cause behind his angst after Connor Zilisch’s title loss to Jesse Love.
He recalled that he had been in a similar situation before, but he had never walked out thinking the entire situation was very ‘egregious’. The ex-NASCAR star recalled the fact that not many people like the current format and have been criticizing it heavily in recent years.
The format betrayed us really badly, I’m trying to understand where my frustration or my angst is, what is to be directed at. We’ve had this format for a while. It’s done this before, but I’ve never walked out of there going, ‘F*ck, dude, that was way f*cking egregious.’ What is it about this particular year? We’ve had this format, a lot of people don’t like it, we’ve all kind of not said too much sh*t about it over the years.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said via Dale Jr. Download.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. labels Phoenix antics as ‘f**king wrong’
Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not hesitate to put forth his blunt opinion on the matter and use some colorful language in the process. The 51-year-old has been a critic of the format for a very long time now. However, there were many who enjoyed the winner-takes-it-all format. Even those people are now unhappy with how things panned out at Phoenix and are calling for changes to the format.
Recalling the events of Phoenix, Dale Earnhardt Jr. pointed out that it took a long while for people to come around to how he was feeling about the playoff format all along. He noted that one race to decide the championship winner was too aggressive, but people lived with it anyway. However, he reflected that he walked out of Phoenix thinking that the events were just plain wrong and Denny Hamlin did not deserve it at all.
It took everybody a long time to come around to really what I’ve been feeling about this format since it came into existence. Like, one race to decide it is too aggressive, but we all lived with it for a while. But I never walked out of Homestead or Phoenix going, ‘That was just f*cking wrong.’
Dale Earnhardt Jr. added.
Regardless of the backlash now, the 2025 season is over, and Kyle Larson is the deserving winner of the Cup Series title. Although Larson led no laps at Phoenix, he still won the title because of the playoff format. NASCAR would have to listen to the community at one point and ensure that everyone is satisfied with the changes. For now, it would be a dark time for Hamlin and Zilisch for sure.
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