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It was the four drivers that all entered this race below the cutoff.

In addition to the well-publicized elimination of Ross Chastain, three other contenders were eliminated from NASCAR Cup Series championship contention on Sunday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.

And realistically, it’s the three that absolutely needed nothing short of a win in Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric.

There was a brief amount of time where it looked like Reddick could have caught either Joey Logano or Chastain in points but it would have required a near perfect race even if he had finished second to Shane Van Gisbergen.

What went wrong for polesitter Reddick?

Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing Toyota

Reddick started from the pole and was in a position to score stage points but ultimately prioritized track position during the first stage. They had a must-win mentality from the drop of the green flag and just didn’t have that kind of long run speed.

“I don’t know if anything necessarily went wrong today for how the race was playing out,” Reddick said. “We wanted to prioritize setting up to win the race. I think you could pick it apart – a couple restarts and what not, just kind of, as the race unfolded our long run was not where it needed to be with the top guys.

“Stage three there, we didn’t make the progress that we needed too, so we kind of went long there hoping for a caution there, and lost a lot of spots, but at the end of the day, we were trying to set ourselves up for a caution late. Looking back on it, my crew chief, Billy Scott, said we were only out by 14 – maybe we could have chased points a little bit harder there, so a few things to look back on, but coming into this, we played it the way we should have.”

Bubba Wallace follows teammate into elimination

Bubba Wallace, 23XI Racing Toyota

His teammate at 23XI, Wallace, needed to win at all costs and he just wasn’t a factor in finishing 15th, making the dramatics with team owner Denny Hamlin this past week after Kansas all the more disheartening.

“Just was thrown for a loop with this tire, and it is funny to look at myself and Denny and a couple others at the short tracks, when tires degrade, we are pretty good at being able to save tire,” Wallace said. “Him and I both suck on road courses and we can’t save tires on road courses. It is just frustrating. It is back to how I was a couple of years ago.

“Frustrated at myself, just knowing what was on the line, and didn’t produce, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. I appreciate everyone on this Leidos Toyota team for pushing hard. This one sucks worse than last week for sure. I had high hopes coming in here, and it is what it is.”

Cindric gets pushed around

Austin Cindric spin, Team Penske Ford

Cindric entered the race without even a mathematical shot at advancing on points. He started 19th and was inside the top-15 when he got crashed by Carson Hocevar. From there, Cindric needed to go the infield work area and that was that.

“We made good progress on the initial start but it was pretty slick and pretty tricky,” Cindric said. “I made a mistake there and lost some spots and then got dumped. It’s such a long race here and even in those moments, I felt like I was never out of it. I just didn’t want to put us in a situation where we would be out of it.

“I thought with this tire fall off, and all the different strategies, it just made it a shame that we got hit so perfectly that it KOed my rear suspension. Yeah, today wasn’t our entire season but we found ourself in this position because of how we ran the past two weeks.”

Chastain's unforced errors and last-lap chaos

Ross Chastain, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet;

Beyond the last lap theatrics, where Chastain needed to re-pass Denny Hamlin to advance on points over Joey Logano, there were a multitude of other reasons the Trackhouse No. 1 found themselves in that position in the first place.

Chastain started the race in 10th but lost his track position at the end of the first stage when he came off pit road inside the top-10 but missed the left handed turn on pit exit. He would have to restart 31st, where he blended in behind Josh Berry.

Despite that setback, Chastain drove through the field and scored second stage points. He was securely back above Logano but then got hit with a speeding penalty on pit road with 30 laps to go.

He still passed Logano and was back in a playoff transfer spot but lost it when they stayed out on old tires and got passed by those who cut the stage into thirds. That included Hamlin.

“The whole body of work was not good enough today, but then we got to the last lap with a shot, and I just needed to keep those cars behind me, and I missed Turn 7,” Chastain said. “Another unacceptable, unforced [error]. The No. 11 wasn’t even close to me, and I downshifted unnecessarily into first to make sure I turned the corner and I slid the rears and let him drive right by me. There were three big errors that took us out. We were fast enough to transfer.”

The only option he had left was to try to shove Hamlin out of the way and get that spot back and that didn’t work either, leaving Chastain to lament all that went wrong.

“I single-handedly took a car out of the Round of 8 and a chance to go to the Round of 4,” Chastain said. “In two months, we’ve elevated ourselves from I’d say an 18th-place car to an eighth-place car, and today we were good enough to run top five, and I took us out of that. We should have been cycling around the top five all day, and the pit strategy would have flipped us around, but those moves are the only reasons we’re not in the Round of 8. It’s all on me.”

Who was eliminated in NASCAR Roval Playoff race