What is the Matt Kenseth rule in NASCAR? All you need to know

The 2004 NASCAR Cup Series season marked the first under a playoff format, a points system that was focused on putting more emphasis on race wins. The playoffs were sometimes referred to as "The Matt Kenseth Rule" after the driver's controversial championship win in 2003.

Kenseth won his first and only career Cup Series title in 2003 despite only winning one race, Las Vegas, during the entire season. However, the Wisconsin native's consistency throughout the year rewarded him in the end as the driver of the #17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford accumulated more points than any other driver to win the championship.

Kenseth's championship triumph sparked criticism from many because, as previously mentioned, he only won a single race during the season. One of the critics included car owner Roger Penske as his driver, Ryan Newman, wheeled his way to eight victories in the 2003 campaign, but failed to win the championship. This sparked NASCAR to make a change and put more importance on race wins rather than consistency. Thus, the NASCAR playoffs were born.

In 2004, NASCAR implemented the first playoffs format, formally known as The Chase for the Nextel Cup. It was a 10-driver, 10-race format, with the driver accumulating the most points at the end of the 10 races winning the title. The starting order for the Chase was determined by amount of race wins, therefore it was key for drivers to win as many races as possible during the regular season in order to be in the best position. In 2007, the Chase format expanded to 12 drivers.

NASCAR changed the format again in 2011 by adopting the wild card format. Instead of just the top 12 drivers, the wild card format consisted of the top 10 drivers advancing to the playoffs while the final two drivers were determined by whoever had the most race wins between 11th and 20th in the standings. In 2014, NASCAR implemented the 16-driver format that's still used today.

Today's NASCAR playoffs formula includes 16 drivers with four being eliminated at the end of every three playoff races. A win in one of the three races guarantees a driver a spot in the next round. The final four drivers compete for the championship in the season finale race with the highest finisher of the four winning the title.

Ryan Newman almost won the 2014 championship despite having no wins

While NASCAR has tried to implement a playoff format that focuses on winning, it almost didn't work out for them in the debut year of the 16-driver format. Despite not winning a race in 2014, Ryan Newman finished runner-up in the championship race behind Kevin Harvick, who went on to win the title.

Newman made it into the Championship 4 race by one point over Jeff Gordon, who was eliminated despite having four wins in 2014. Brad Keselowski, meanwhile, notched a season-high six victories in 2014 but was unable to make the championship race.

This past season, Kyle Larson won a season-high six races but failed to win the championship. Joey Logano won three of the 10 playoff races en route to his third career championship.