2 months agoMichael McDowell continued his trend of posting the best qualifying performances of his career with an eighth-place qualifying run for today's Brickyard 400. Amongst Ford drivers, only defending champion and hottest driver on the circuit, Ryan Blaney, outqualified him. McDowell is rather difficult to evaluate at Indianapolis because when the NASCAR Cup Series last raced here, he had significantly slower cars than he has had in recent years. However, in his last four starts, he finished no worse than 18th and actually finished 7th in 2020; at the time, that was his best-ever finish on a non-drafting oval. Strong road racers do tend to perform well at Indy and his cars are much faster now than they were then. However, he has also tended to fade in nearly all the races he qualified well. He's a solid threat for a top 10, but don't expect much more than that.--Sean Wrona - RotoBaller
Source: Racing Reference