NASCAR Will Dish Out Fastest-Lap Points This Season, And Here's Why It'll Make Things Interesting

2025 will mark the first season in quite some time that Formula 1 will not award an additional bonus point to the driver who lays down the fastest lap of the race, but it turns out that that the rule is moving to NASCAR.

NASCAR has re-upped their deal with Xfinity, and the new deal will include a new fastest lap point — sponsored by Xfinity, of course — that will be awarded in the three top series: the NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

According to NASCAR, all drivers will be eligible for what's being called the Xfinity Fastest Lap, but only championship points-earning drivers are eligible to get the extra point, which will be awarded in the drivers' standings.

If the driver who drops the fastest lap isn't championship eligible, then they'll earn a bonus owner point.

The driver with the most Xfinity Fastest Laps at the end of the season in each series will earn a donation to go to the charity or cause of their choosing.

Not going to lie, I'm pumped about this, and here's why you should be too.

NASCAR's New Fastest Lap Rule, Shouldn't Have The Same Shortcomings As F1's Old Rule

I always liked the fastest lap rule in F1, but it started to run its course and that's one of the reasons it got tossed out.

I liked the extra dimensions of strategy it provided with teams trying to steal it away from rival teams, but it was kind of easy to do.

If a driver had a nice gap behind and ahead of them, they'd pit for soft tires, and that was about all they needed to do.

Setting the fastest lap on fresh softs when everyone else was on either old tires of a harder compound, or, if they were on softs at some point in the race, it would likely have been early with the car full of fuel.

The nature of a NASCAR race with pitstops for fuel and most races only using one tire compound (so you can't just throw on the fastest tire late in the race like you could in F1) will make things interesting.

Plus, in F1, the fastest lap point was only available to drivers finishing in points-paying positions, in other words, the top 10. It doesn't look like NASCAR will have any kind of rule like that, which could mean we could in theory see someone a few laps down drop a blistering lap and steal a point.

It will be very interesting to see how teams try to use this new rule, especially as we get deeper into the season.

I think this could add some cool strategic angles to NASCAR, and we'll see what kind of effect it has on races when the season gets underway with the Daytona 500 on February 16.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.