Prior to officially unveiling the Chase for the Championship format in January, NASCAR and Racing Insights conducted over 25,000 simulations to predict how the format could potentially play out.<\/p>\n
The findings:<\/p>\n
Overall, drivers won the championship 85 percent of time when seeded inside the top six and 69 percent of the time from the top three. There is a pathway to the championship all the way through the 16th seed but the math doesn\u2019t lie about who the favorites are.<\/p>\n
The Chase Grid<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin
Ryan Blaney -25
Tyler Reddick -35
Ty Gibbs -40
Chase Briscoe -45
Christopher Bell -50
Kyle Larson -55
Chase Elliott -60
Joey Logano -65
Chris Buescher -70
Daniel Suarez -75
Carson Hocevar -80
William Byron -85
Bubba Wallace -90
Austin Cindric -95
Ryan Preece -100<\/p>\n
The schedule<\/p>\n
Cook Out Southern 500 \u2014 Darlington Raceway (Sept. 6) \u00a0
Enjoy Illinois 300 \u2014 World Wide Technology Raceway (Sept. 13) \u00a0
Bass Pro Shops Night Race \u2014 Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 19) \u00a0
Hollywood Casino 400 \u2014 Kansas Speedway (Sept. 27) \u00a0
South Point 400 \u2014 Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 4) \u00a0
Bank of America 400 \u2014 Charlotte Motor Speedway (Oct. 11) \u00a0
Freeway Insurance 500 \u2014 Phoenix Raceway (Oct. 18) \u00a0
YellaWood 500 \u2014 Talladega Superspeedway (Oct. 25) \u00a0
Xfinity 500 \u2014 Martinsville Speedway (Nov. 1) \u00a0
Championship Race \u2014 Homestead-Miami Speedway (Nov. 8)<\/p>\n
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The favorites<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin, with four wins and a series best 8.2 average finish, is no doubt the favorite to win his elusive championship. When asked if his fellow Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing stablemates were the steepest challengers, Hamlin agreed with a caveat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you would use numbers, you would say yes,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cBut there are drivers that I believe step up in these scenarios in the playoffs, in the Chase. So, I don’t believe that the advantage is quite as steep as maybe as what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is of course a reference to second-seeded Ryan Blaney above all else. Despite a season in which Ford and Team Penske is overall down on speed everywhere but on flat short tracks, the Jonathan Hassler led team has had the second fastest car on \u2018speed\u2019 according to Racing Insights.<\/p>\n
Toyotas have had a clear advantage on intermediate tracks this year and Blaney believes that could be where this championship is decided.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mile-and-a-halves are a place to where we know we have to continue to improve, and I feel like we\u2019ve made steps from Chicago,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cIndianapolis isn\u2019t a mile-and-a-half, but it\u2019s a bigger track and (Joey Logano) had a heck of a run there, so that really shows me that we\u2019ve made a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just curious to see when we do get those \u2013 Charlotte, Vegas and Kansas \u2013 but then I think all of the other places we\u2019ve had really good runs, but you can\u2019t rely on that. You have to continue to try to improve, no matter if it\u2019s your best race tracks or forms of tracks or tracks maybe you\u2019ve struggled at. It\u2019s all week to week type stuff, but I think we feel good about it. It\u2019s just a matter of who can put the best 10 together and someone is going to do that. Hopefully that\u2019s us.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, is this a Blaney versus Toyota playoff run?<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of other guys that can go out there and do it. All 16 teams in this thing, I think, are very, very good and can really go on runs, but the Toyotas are incredibly fast. We\u2019ve seen that all year. I think the Fords, for myself and (Joey Logano) and (Austin Cindric), and (Ryan Preece) and (Chris Buescher), I feel like we\u2019ve had a really good last two or three months and closed the gap there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m curious to see where we\u2019re at on the mile-and-a-halves, where we have those three in a row. That\u2019s going to be a huge sign of seeing where we\u2019re going to be and how we stack up with the Toyotas. And then you know (Kyle Larson) and (Chase Elliott) are incredibly good, too. So, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s us versus the Toyotas. It\u2019s us versus 15 other people. That\u2019s how I look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s just his manufacturer pride talking but Christopher Bell was decisive in his answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. I believe that the champion will be a Toyota,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bell is the sixth seed but has yet to win this season. In fact, his most recent win was nearly a year ago in the Bristol Night Race.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we win a championship? Yes,\u201d Bell said. \u201cWithout winning, right? Can we win a championship without winning a race? No. That’s my answer. I don’t believe so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside of Hamlin, all the other Toyotas have tangible questions going into the final 10. Bell has the closest championship pedigree as Hamlin but just hasn\u2019t won. Ty Gibbs has won twice but is the youngest of the top seeds. Chase Briscoe was 17th in standings through 12 races but has been a contender ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, we were not a strong and dominant team until the playoffs started, and what it did, we were arguably one of the best teams,\u201d Briscoe said. \u201cSo yeah, last year, when we started together, I felt good about what we could be but I didn\u2019t know what our true potential was.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I know we are more than capable of winning the championship. Like just internally, I would say myself, James (Small, crew chief), the entire team, we feel way better about this year than we did last year just because we kind of know what to expect and we also know what the expectation is now for ourselves just because we kind of do it week in, week out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Tyler Reddick, who opened this season with five wins across the past nine races, but now has five finishes worse than 25th over the past 10 races. It\u2019s been that kind of summer \u2013 one that cost them the top seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is more than bad luck,\u201d Reddick said. \u201cThere are things that have happened that we have learned from, and most importantly how we respond and handle those moments and make the most out of them isn\u2019t something that we need to forget or move on from.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, ideally, it\u2019s good to have good points days, but as much as you want to think that you will have 10 races go exactly as planned, no mistakes, no issues \u2013 things are going to happen that you are not ready for and you are going to have to fight through adversity at points. We\u2019ve been through enough of it and ready if we have more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read Also:<\/p>\n
The midpack\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though the math says the champion will most likely come from within the top six seeds, Reddick articulated the best how anyone could theoretically make a run.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoints can be lost and gained in huge chunks if you perform at a very high level or perform at a very extremely bad level or have really bad days,\u201d said Reddick, from experience. \u201cAgain, it will be really interesting to see how it plays out. With the previous format, if you get 70 points up, you are feeling super good and feeling like you are in a great spot, but you can lose 77 of them in a race, so it\u2019s all very interesting to keep that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0The most interesting driver from this second batch is Joey Logano, whom has climbed from 20th to ninth, giving him just 65 points to make up with the reset. He\u2019s won twice at North Wilkesboro and Richmond with a third in the Brickyard 400.<\/p>\n
And even though this is a different championship format, Logano earned a reputation of finding another figurative gear over the final 10 races that led to his three titles under the old format.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a reputation that we\u2019ve earned over the years, that unfortunately, during the regular season we seem to just be okay, and then it gets to game time and the 22 starts to show up,\u201d Logano said. \u201cSo I feel confident in our team that we can do it. People think that way because we have done it and we\u2019ve done it multiple times, so I feel like we can show up again when it matters and do it in a different format.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Hendrick drivers Kyle Larson and William Byron, who both haven\u2019t won this year despite championship pedigrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not as confident as I\u2019ve been, for sure, in other years,\u201d said Larson. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t, honestly, sitting here that confident last year, and we were able to win the championship. I know there\u2019s a path to do it. We did it last year without winning a race in the final 10 races, and we weren\u2019t even really all that consistent, from what I remember. I think if we can be ultra-consistent in these final 10 races, there\u2019s no doubt that I could see ourselves winning the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I could also see ourselves winning four or five races in the Chase. You know, things have to go perfect, but we do have a lot of good tracks for us in these final 10. We just need to execute at a high level, and I think our team is definitely capable of that. We\u2019ll try and do our best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byron feels like nothing that came before really matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s anyone\u2019s game,\u201d Byron said. \u201cI mean, look at how the points have swung over the year between first and second. So, I think it\u2019s really going to be who performs the best for 10 races. I would really love to be the first seed, but I think it\u2019s going to come down to who races well the next 10 weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
To his point, in the aforementioned simulations, the driver that scored the most points over the final 10 races won the championship in 70 percent of runs \u2026 regardless of which seed he started from.<\/p>\n
Chase Elliott started off the year with two wins at Martinsville and Texas but has been mired in a deep slump over the summer that saw him fall from third to eighth in the standings<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re never as far off as you probably think you are or can think you are at different moments,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cI think our performance early in the year is really a good reminder of that, right? Like, you know, we had a great start, I thought, to the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of performance in the opening month, month-and-a-half. You know, we were super pumped about that and just excited that we were getting the season started off that way. We kind of had a summer stretch that we didn\u2019t want to have to see. But we did, and we\u2019ve seen both sides of the coin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone else<\/p>\n
Ryan Preece had a walk off moment in winning at Daytona to outscore Shane Van Gisbergen for the final spot in the Chase for the Championship.<\/p>\n
He will start 100 points back, but so what?<\/p>\n
“At the end of the day, we\u2019ve won two races this year \u2013 one points paying and one non-points paying \u2013 but why not,” Preece said. “There\u2019s only one place for us to go and that\u2019s forward.”<\/p>\n
Like Byron, Preece dismisses the notion that only the top six can win the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe that,\u201d Preece said. \u201cNot at all. I think those guys are going to race the hell out of each other and if they have a couple of bad races, there\u2019s no win and you\u2019re in to get to the next round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be tough to make up those points, so if you\u2019re a team that puts 10 great weeks together and wins races and gets stage points, the fact that you\u2019re in the top 16, I hate to tell you just because you\u2019re 16th in points doesn\u2019t mean you didn\u2019t execute a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan Newman nearly won the inaugural Playoff in 2014 and entered the Championship Race without having won that season. That has a special relevance to Carson Hocevar, who won earlier this season and is the 12th seed after reaching as high as fifth in the standings earlier in the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team moral or motto is we\u2019re playing with house money,\u201d Hocevar said. \u201cLuke (Lambert) and Matt McCall were on that (Newman) team in 2014, and that\u2019s how they approached it, and they finished second. I\u2019m not going to look at the points until the end. They\u2019ll let me know when I walk up at the banquet where I finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bubba Wallace has adopted the anyone can win mentality as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same people that say that say you can\u2019t get the numbers lost in translation,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cIf you put together the best 10 weeks for us and you do that better than the rest \u2013 who knows if that propels us to a championship, because we are 90 points behind, but if you outperform the rest of the group, then who knows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think anybody has a shot. Now if the points didn\u2019t reset, I think we were 300 or so points out from Denny (and) we had no shot. But we are 90 out now, and if you win a race, it\u2019s up to 75 points, and maybe they all have a bad race. We\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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