March 2, 2025
Front Row Motorsports driver Noah Gragson will start 17th for this week's race at Circuit of the Americas, the Echopark Texas Grand Prix. It will be the second time in his Cup career that Gragson will start inside the top 20 at the Texas road course. In two past starts at COTA, Gragson's best finish is 20th, but he did earn positive place differential in his most recent race at the Texas road course last year. At road course events excluding Chicago since 2022, Gragson has two top-20 finishes and three finishes with positive place differential in six races at the track type. In final practice, Gragson ranked 29th in overall lap averages while ranking 27th in five consecutive lap averages. Despite the slow practice speeds, Gragson is in better equipment than most around his price range ($5,800) and is worth rostering as a driver capable of placing in the top 20.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
March 2, 2025
Erik Jones of Legacy Motor Club obtained a starting position of 32nd after qualifying for this week's Echopark Texas Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. This will mark the third time in his Cup career that Jones will start 30th or lower at COTA. In four races at COTA, the No. 43 Toyota driver has two top-20 finishes and three finishes with positive place differential. In 15 starts at road courses outside of Chicago, Jones has five top-20 finishes. In final practice, Jones ranked 35th of all drivers in overall lap averages. Despite his slow practice speeds and road course inconsistency, COTA is a decent track for the driver of the No. 43 Toyota, and he has plenty of potential upside. Jones' history at road courses does not make him a primary play, but he can be worth consideration for cash games in DFS based on his low salary ($5,300) and upside.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
March 2, 2025
After winning back-to-back poles at Austin, William Byron qualified a disappointing 15th for Sunday's Echopark Automotive Grand Prix. But don't expect him to stay there for long, as he fought a scrappy race-long battle with Sunday's's polesitter Tyler Reddick in 2023 before pretty much controlling the race last year. Although he was slow in the first practice, he ranked second in the second practice behind only Shane van Gisbergen, and it seems likely he'll run in the top 10 all day But it does look like the 23XI Racing cars, the Trackhouse Racing cars, and a couple of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates may be faster. As last year's winner from the pole, Byron is the most expensive driver in DFS at $10,000. The fact that he qualified so poorly suggests there is some value, but the fact that other drivers are cheaper suggests there are better buys.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Denny Hamlin, the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, fittingly qualified 11th at Circuit of the Americas, but curiously, the Joe Gibbs Racing car he drives has not seemed to be as fast on road courses (especially here) as the 23XI Racing cars he owns. While both of his drivers locked out the front row (including Bubba Wallace, who is not a noted road racer) the JGR cars all qualified substantially slower but Hamlin did qualify faster than his teammates. In recent years, Hamlin has tended to be faster in road course qualifying than the race as he won three road/street course poles in 2023 but tended to either fade or crash. At Austin, he consistently ran in the upper midfield with finishes between 14th and 18th. It doesn't seem likely that the speed will be there for him this weekend, so he isn't a good fantasy option.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Since switching to Richard Childress Racing, Kyle Busch has almost entirely lost any semblance of the surefire consistency he used to have. However, road courses seem to have been an exception as he had four top fives on road and street courses in 2023 and he still had two top tens on those tracks last year. It's hard to imagine Busch will run as badly as last year again and he has been strong at Austin in the past with three top tens including a 2nd place finish in 2023, where he qualified 9th. If he regresses to his usual mean, he should probably run closer to his 2023 performance, but the field has certainly gotten a lot deeper with Shane van Gisbergen, Carson Hocevar, and Connor Zilisch. Expect him to run in the top ten but never fight for the lead. He qualified too well for serious DFS consideration.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
For all the hype Michael McDowell gets as a road-racing pro, Carson Hocevar really showed him up in Austin qualifying on Saturday as Hocevar qualified fourth to McDowell's 16th. Admittedly, that is the best McDowell has ever qualified here and he did finish better than he started in all his previous races except last year, when he had a mechanical DNF. The Spire Motorsports cars did show speed on road courses last year, especially at Watkins Glen, where they managed to place all three cars in the top 10, so McDowell has a possible shot at a top-10 finish. There's definitely a little DFS value, but Hocevar seems a lot more likely to both win and outrun McDowell. McDowell is still a better choice for DFS than Hocevar, even though he is more expensive, specifically because he qualified worse.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
After having potentially race-winning speed in both drafting track races, Joey Logano starts the meat-and-potatoes portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season with a 23rd-place qualifying run at Austin. That sounds rather bad in a vacuum, but the Fords were absolutely miserable in qualifying as only Todd Gilliland qualified in the top 15 and Logano actually outqualified both of his teammates. However, there is some evidence the Fords might be somewhat faster in the race. Although Logano himself only ranked 16th and 22nd in practice, his teammates Austin Cindric and Ryan Blaney both made the top ten in the first and second practices respectively, which may mean Logano could have more speed in the race so there might be DFS value there. However, his average finish at Austin is only 18.3 and is average running position is only 16.7 with this car, so don't count on it.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Road courses have always been Austin Dillon's worst track type as he only has two top-10 finishes in 37 starts and an average finish of 22.6, while he's been more competitive everywhere else. One of those top-10 finishes did come at the road course where the NASCAR Cup Series will be racing on Sunday in the city that shares his name, but although he finished 10th, he ran much worse and his average running position was only 21st. Furthermore, Dillon always runs substantially better when Justin Alexander is his crew chief, and Alexander has once more been replaced by Richard Boswell. Combining those two factors, along with the fact that he's only starting 27th, means you can't expect much.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Justin Haley has a reputation as a strong road racer because of a couple genuinely strong runs at Chicago in 2023 and the Charlotte roval in 2022 that don't seem to be representative of his usual performance. His average finish at Austin is only 28.3. He did have a mechanical DNF in one of those races, but even if you go by average running position instead, his average only improves to 23rd as he has mostly run in the midfield. It may help him that Michael McDowell is now his teammate so he may be able to pick up something from his or Carson Hocevar's setups as Bubba Wallace has from Tyler Reddick, but since they both drastically outqualified him with Hocevar starting 4th and McDowell starting 16th, it's hard to imagine Haley doing much in the race.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Although Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is a genuinely good driver on drafting tracks and he's had moments on all other track types, road courses are clearly Stenhouse's Achilles heel as he has only a single top-10 finish in 40 road-course starts. It did come here at Austin in 2023 when he finished seventh, but that was mostly because he drove through an endless series of wrecks and not because he actually had speed, as his average running position was only 19th. Stenhouse has proven repeatedly that this track type is not his métier, and since he is starting 22nd, he also outqualified several drivers who you would expect to run better (especially Chris Buescher). Stenhouse should not be considered for any race bets, even in DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Josh Berry had possibly the best drive of his career at Atlanta last week where he led 56 laps, but that means nothing in terms of predicting how he'll do at Austin. Berry has only made four Cup Series starts on road courses to date but so far they seem to be his worst track type a his average finish of 28.5 is worse than on any other discipline and he ran in the 30s for almost the entire event last year. Since the Wood Brothers team might be a downgrade from the Stewart-Haas Racing #4 team, especially since he no longer has Rodney Childers as his crew chief, it's hard to imagine he'll do much better this year. Berry is probably best avoided for DFS lineups.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
After a miserable 2024, John Hunter Nemechek is improbably one of only two drivers to earn top-10 finishes in the first two races this season, but those both came on drafting tracks that have little to do with the rest of the schedule, so his performance in previous years is probably more important when forecasting his performance at Austin. In last year's event, he was not much of a factor, starting 22nd and finishing 21st. This year, however, he has qualified 33rd and seems to be even slower, although he only qualified one position worse than his Legacy Motor Club teammate Erik Jones. Even though they both qualified so badly and are cheap, they have been so slow on non-drafting tracks of late that they are probably very negligible in terms of DFS value.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Ryan Preece starts 28th at Austin on Sunday. He is not particularly known as a road racer, having only posted two top-10 finishes in 21 road-course starts, but he did have one of his all-time best moments at the inaugural race in 2021 in Austin when he passed Ross Chastain for the lead in the rain. However, that came with the previous Gen 6 car, and he's rarely shown much with the Next Gen chassis. Sometimes drivers can benefit from being teammates of strong road racers who can help with setups, so there is a possibility Chris Buescher may be able to do that for Preece, but since Buescher himself qualified a mere four positions better than Preece and finishes in the top-10 more than any other driver on this track type of late, he's a much better choice for DFS play than Preece, even though Preece is cheaper.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Riley Herbst is making his NASCAR Cup Series debut on a road course in Sunday's race at Circuit of the Americas. Although he actually led Saturday's Xfinity Series race for a while, don't expect him to repeat that feat on Sunday, as it generally takes time for any new driver to learn the Next Gen chassis, and Herbst is proving to be no exception after qualifying 31st. Simply because of the speed of his car, his poor qualifying position, and the fact that his DraftKings salary of $5,400 is so cheap, there might be some DFS value here if you think he has similar speed to his teammates, but more likely his inexperience will result in a mediocre finish.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
March 2, 2025
Although Cody Ware has a surprising amount of road course experience and he even won an Amateur class championship in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2019-20, he has never really factored in his NASCAR Cup Series road course starts to date as he has an average finish of 31.8 on all road courses and an average of 28.0 at Austin specifically. On top of that, he not only qualified 37th and last in yesterday's qualifying session, but he was also 1.3 seconds slower than the next-slowest driver Austin Cindric, and this is not the sort of track where one would expect a slow car to fluke into a decent finish. Ware should obviously not be considered for any fantasy prospects.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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