Zane Smith Fast At Kansas But Unproven In Cup Series

As Zane Smith adjusts to the Next Gen car, which seems to take longer for most rookies to adapt to than previous chassis, he is currently the slowest full-time driver in the NASCAR Cup Series with a speed percentile of 21.54. However, his qualifying speed at Kansas this weekend was competitive with his Spire Motorsports […]

John Hunter Nemechek Outqualified By Teammates For Second Straight Week

John Hunter Nemechek has been one of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series's biggest lowkey disappointments. After triggering the pileup that injured his teammate Erik Jones at Talladega, Nemechek has now been out-qualified by both Jones's substitute, Corey Heim, and his part-time car owner, Jimmie Johnson, back-to-back weeks at Dover and Kansas despite having more experience […]

Justin Haley Unlikely To Contend At Kansas

Justin Haley has certainly improved Rick Ware Racing's competitiveness and reputation to a significant extent this season, as his speed percentile this year of 27.10 is considerably higher than the drivers in the other RWR car, but the team continues to lack the speed necessary to significantly contend, particularly on a track where horsepower is […]

Austin Cindric Qualifies Seventh At Kansas

Austin Cindric continued his string of consistent qualifying runs with a seventh-place start for this weekend's race at Kansas, but despite outqualifying all his Penske teammates as well as the Front Row Motorsports and Wood Brothers satellite cars, he has seldom been able to convert his strong qualifying runs into solid race finishes. He has […]

Non-Drafting Intermediates Are Harrison Burton's Weakness

Harrison Burton qualified 31st at Kansas this weekend and there's little to suggest he might contend on Sunday. Not only has he never led a lap or finished better than 21st in a race at Kansas, he has never even scored a top-10 finish on a non-drafting intermediate to date. Even in the Xfinity Series, […]

Chase Briscoe Slow On Intermediate Tracks

Chase Briscoe qualified 10th for this weekend's race at Kansas, but forecasting his performance is particularly difficult. The Stewart-Haas cars have been notoriously slow on intermediate tracks for the most part with the Next Gen chassis, and Briscoe himself has neither scored a top-10 finish nor led a lap at Kansas. Furthermore, Briscoe's performance on […]

Christopher Bell Wins Third Kansas Pole

Christopher Bell won his first pole of the season for this weekend's AdventHealth 400 at Kansas. This continues his recent trend where he has been the best qualifier in the NASCAR Cup Series, as he won the most poles in both 2022 and 2023 and had the best average starting position last year. However, despite […]

Botched Pit Stop and Crash Eliminate William Byron From Contention at Dover

William Byron has been one of the luckiest drivers since the start of the 2022 NASCAR Cup season, but yesterday's race at Dover proved to be an exception. Byron took the lead from Ryan Blaney in the middle of Stage 1 before Martin Truex, Jr. overtook him with six laps left in the stage. Byron […]

Martin Truex, Jr. Faded to Third at Dover, but Remains Fastest Driver of 2024

Martin Truex, Jr. was considered one of the pre-race favorites for the race at Dover this past weekend, but he came up short and ultimately finished third in the event. Truex did win Stage 1 after hunting down William Byron on an extended green-flag run at the end of that stage, but he lost the […]

Kyle Larson's Late-Race Charge at Dover Comes up Short

Kyle Larson finished a close second to Denny Hamlin in this past weekend's Dover race. He led 39 laps after first beating Martin Truex, Jr. on a green flag pit cycle to win Stage 2 and again took the lead on a caution-flag exchange of pit stops on lap 325. In both cases, Larson eventually […]

Denny Hamlin Takes Checkered Flag at Dover for Third Win of Season

Denny Hamlin scored his third win of the season at the Würth 400 at Dover this past weekend, a win that was forecasted by many models, including our own Jordan McAbee's algorithm-predicted finishing order two days ago. Hamlin's win shouldn't have come as a surprise because many observers expected that the tire wear at Dover […]

Zane Smith Unlikely to Contend After Practice Crash

Zane Smith did not have a good start to his weekend after crashing in the second practice session, which prevented him from registering a time in qualifying. Smith has mightily struggled in his rookie NASCAR Cup Series campaign as he has been both slow and crash-prone. After Daniel Hemric posted the fastest average speed at […]

Dover Not One of Brad Keselowski's Best Tracks

Brad Keselowski still awaits his first win since becoming an owner-driver for his RFK Racing team despite a near-miss last week when Tyler Reddick edged him out coming to the finish at Talladega, but it probably won't come this weekend at Dover. Keselowski did win at "The Monster Mile" once in 2012 via fuel mileage, […]

Ty Gibbs Likely to Contend if Joe Gibbs Racing as Fast as Expected

Ty Gibbs qualified 19th at Dover this weekend, but expect him to carve his way through the field at least to a certain extent. In last year's race, Gibbs started 24th and finished 13th in a race his teammate, Martin Truex, Jr., won. Additionally all of Gibbs' teammates finished inside the top six, indicating that […]

Austin Cindric Continues to Qualify Well, but Lacks Race Speed

Austin Cindric qualified 11th for this weekend's race at Dover, but it isn't one of his best tracks, as he failed to finish his first NASCAR Cup Series race there in 2022 and finished four laps down in 26th last year. Cindric did win his Xfinity Series start there in 2021, where he was generally […]

Harrison Burton Unlikely to Duplicate Talladega Top Ten

Harrison Burton scored his first top ten of the season last week at Talladega, but it is extremely unlikely to foresee him repeating that feat in this weekend's race at Dover. Although he did gain eleven positions from his starting position in both of his NASCAR Cup Series starts at Dover, he finished two laps […]

A.J. Allmendinger Decent at Dover but Not in Recent Years

A.J. Allmendinger qualified 10th for this weekend's Würth 400 at Dover, giving Kaulig Racing its best starting position in the NASCAR Cup Series this year. Although Allmendinger has never led a lap there in the Xfinity Series, he has finished in the top six in his last three Xfinity starts there, including finishing sixth in […]

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Finishes Fourth At Talladega

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. survived the last-lap Big One to score a fourth-place finish at Talladega on Sunday, his best finish this season. However, he didn't run nearly as well as his finish implies, as he never ran better than fourth at any period in the race, and every single driver in the field did that […]

Noah Gragson Surprisingly The Most Consistent Driver At Talladega

Perhaps surprisingly, Noah Gragson had the highest driver rating in Sunday's GEICO 500 at Talladega. Although he had won there in the Xfinity Series and his predecessor, Aric Almirola, was regularly fast on drafting tracks in his entire Stewart-Haas Racing tenure, few people saw Gragson as a top contender. However, he finished third (giving SHR […]

Shane van Gisbergen Acquits Himself Nicely In Drafting Debut

In his first NASCAR Cup Series drafting race, Shane van Gisbergen performed very admirably, although he didn't get the finish to prove it. Van Gisbergen made two passes for the lead in the race, passing Kyle Busch on lap 44 and Chris Buescher on lap 98, proving that his passing for the lead in Saturday's […]

Cody Ware Returns to NASCAR after Suspension Lifted

Cody Ware returns to action for his father Rick's team for the first time since NASCAR reinstated him after his felony assault charges were dropped last December. As with most of the drivers for backmarker teams, Ware will only likely contend if there are a lot of wrecks and he avoids them. He did have […]

Daniel Suárez More Risk-Averse after Locking Himself into Playoffs

Even though Daniel Suárez won the previous drafting race in a classic finish at Atlanta and backed into a top five at Texas last week, don't expect him to contend in this weekend's Talladega race. His win masks the fact that Suárez is actually underachieving. His speed percentile this year sits at 43.32, which is […]

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. Could Turn It Around at Talladega Despite Decline in Form

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. has had a startling collapse since the middle of last year and this year he has been shockingly slow with a speed percentile of 30.83, which is slower than he was in any of his previous full-time seasons. However, if there is any track where he could turn it around, Talladega might […]

BJ McLeod Now Part-Time, but Still Entering Drafting Races

After selling his Live Fast Motorsports charter to Spire Motorsports last year, BJ McLeod has dropped back to a partial schedule but he continues to enter the races on drafting tracks because those are the only tracks where he realistically could get a decent finish with his team's underfunded equipment. McLeod has been generally good […]

Carson Hocevar's Inexperience at Talladega Makes Him Hard to Predict

Carson Hocevar starts way back in 35th for his first Talladega race as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, but he did start the second Talladega race last year in the Legacy Motor Club No. 42 car. In that race, he crashed after never really significantly factoring. In his Craftsman Truck Series starts at Talladega, […]

Shane van Gisbergen a Better Drafter than Expected

Shane van Gisbergen makes his NASCAR Cup Series debut on a drafting track today at Talladega, but he's already shown something of a proclivity in drafting in his Xfinity Series starts, finishing 3rd at Atlanta and running in the top five for large portions of this weekend's Xfinity race, including passing Sammy Smith for the […]

Ross Chastain Strong on Drafting Tracks, but Greatest Strengths Lie Elsewhere

Ross Chastain qualified 32nd for this weekend's GEICO 500 at Talladega, but starting positions don't really matter here as long as you miss the wrecks. Chastain has been a solid performer on drafting tracks as he has made an on-track pass for the lead in eight of the fourteen NextGen drafting races to date including […]

Daniel Suárez the Luckiest Driver at Texas, Scores Top Five

Daniel Suárez had a strong fifth-place finish at Texas this weekend, which is one of his most consistent tracks. However, he ran much worse than his finishing result and was probably the luckiest driver in the race. Suarez, the winner of the previous high-banked intermediate race at Atlanta, was nowhere to be seen for most […]

Late Spinout Costs Denny Hamlin Likely Second-Place Finish

Denny Hamlin had a methodical run at Texas. He ranked second in average speed behind only his driver, Tyler Reddick, who tied him for third in laps led with 37. However, Hamlin's strong run was cut short when he spun out on the penultimate lap of the race shortly after Chase Elliott cleared him for […]

Ty Gibbs Had Speed at Texas, But Burnt by Pit Crew

Ty Gibbs qualified on the outside front row alongside polesitter Kyle Larson at Texas, but he fell to 13th in what was an extremely topsy-turvy afternoon. Gibbs fell to 8th after the first round of green flag pit stops because he pitted several laps later than the other leaders, then fell to the back after […]