3 weeks agoJust like in 2022, Joey Logano had a subpar day at Homestead by design after locking himself into the Championship 4 at Las Vegas. Logano's team is obviously primarily focused on going all in on Phoenix to maximize his chances for a championship, a strategy which proved effective that year. As a result, he went through the motions at Homestead, finishing a mere 28th with an average running position of 20th in a race where the seven other drivers in the Round of 8 were all in the top ten as often as not. There was nothing whatsoever at stake for Logano yesterday as long as he didn't get hurt, so it's understandable he decided to chill. He still hasn't had a top four season by any means, but he is probably being criticized too much for not being consistent when the knockout playoff format doesn't reward that.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoDenny Hamlin had a near-miss in yesterday's Homestead race that greatly diminishes his chances of making the Championship Four at Phoenix. He ultimately finished third despite taking the lead from his driver Tyler Reddick on the final restart with seven laps remaining. On the penultimate lap, Ryan Blaney took the lead from Hamlin as Reddick swept around him for second place before Reddick overtook Blaney in the final corner on the last lap to win. The finish left him 18 points behind William Byron for the final transfer spot in the Championship Four and 11 points behind Kyle Larson. Since they are likely to score a lot of points at Martinsville after finishing 1-2 in the spring, Hamlin will likely need to win at Martinsville to advance to the Championship 4, but given his record there, it's definitely possible.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoDespite the fact that Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. is currently having one of the slowest seasons of his career, he shocked the world with a fifth-place qualifying run yesterday at Homestead, his best since the spring Darlington race of 2023 when he qualified third. However, Homestead has not been a good track for him as in 12 previous starts he has never finished better than 13th and he has only ever led one lap there even though he has qualified in the top ten three other races in the past. When you consider that Stenhouse is currently on pace for the slowest season of his entire career, his qualifying run seems like an outlier, a fluke, and an ancillary benefit of Ford's miserable qualifying performance. It's hard to imagine him getting a top ten finish without a lot of strategy.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoAlthough Zane Smith had a miserable first half of the season, he has definitely picked it up in the second half even if all his top ten finishes came in races where he was running considerably worse than that. Astonishingly, he actually has a better average finish than Joey Logano over the second half of the season since Smith only has one crash DNF to Logano's four. The Spire Motorsports cars definitely seem to have intermediate speed as all of them qualified in the top 20, although Smith was the slowest as he will be starting 19th. Although he's never made a NASCAR Cup Series start at Homestead, he did earn a second place finish and lead 60 laps in the Craftsman Truck Series, so he could have some speed here. Expect another finish near the back of the top 20 as usual.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoIn a qualifying session where all the Fords looked miserable, lame-duck Stewart-Haas Racing driver Ryan Preece qualified 35th at Homestead and was the slowest full-time Ford driver. The SHR cars are typically slow on flat 1.5-mile ovals and Preece is arguably slower still as in 90 races on tracks between 1 and 2 miles in length, Preece has only had a single top ten finish, that being a fourth in this year's Nashville race, where he still ran terribly with an average running position of 24th and backed into a top five entirely on strategy. Neither the driver nor his team seem particularly suited to this track type and Preece will probably be one of the slowest drivers who does not have trouble in the race.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoDespite winning a season-high six poles thanks to his dominant qualifying on drafting tracks, McDowell has definitely been hit-or-miss in terms of qualifying everywhere else, as he only qualified 24th for today's Homestead race, the worst since the Southern 500. McDowell hasn't factored much in the oval races where he didn't win the pole, and that will probably hold true for today's Homestead race as well. McDowell has only led a career two laps at the track and although he did get two top ten finishes there (including shockingly once for Leavine Family Racing), his average running positions of 18th and 13th in those races weren't amazing and neither of them came with the Next Gen car. Considering Ford's apparent speed deficit this weekend, he'll likely need strategy to get in the mix.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoAfter Joey Logano locked himself into the playoffs by winning last weekend's race at Las Vegas, it seems likely that his No. 22 team will likely be entirely focused on Phoenix likely at the expense of the next two races. When he won at Las Vegas to lock himself into the Championship Four in 2022, he only finished 18th and he only qualified 26th for today's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead. Logano only won at Homestead once when it was the championship finale in 2018 when he needed to win it to win the championship. It seems like his team more than any other in the knockout playoff era focuses on winning the right races rather than running well everywhere, so he will likely have a mediocre run by his standards at Homestead but run well at Phoenix.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoCarson Hocevar has a chance to wrap up the Rookie of the Year award in today's Homestead race as he leads his fellow rookie Josh Berry by 99 points. If he leaves with a 121-point lead after Homestead, Berry can't catch him. He probably won't clinch the award today, but since the Spire Motorsports cars do seem to be picking up speed on intermediates while the Stewart-Haas Racing cars seem to be dreadfully slow on them, he will probably very nearly do so. Hocevar, who qualified 15th at Homestead, has never started a NASCAR Cup Series race there before but did win last year's Craftsman Truck Series race and he is proving to be an exceptionally fast learner while the Spire cars seem to have generally picked up speed throughout the season. Despite his lack of Cup Series experience, Hocevar is a good dark horse candidate for a top ten.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoSince Daniel Hemric lost his Kaulig Racing ride in 2025, he clearly has something to prove to any remaining NASCAR Cup Series owners who might be listening as he unexpectedly qualified 9th at Homestead, his best qualifying run of the season. This is particularly surprising since Hemric has never started a Cup Series race at Homestead with this car, although he did finish 12th in his one previous start way back in his rookie season of 2019. He ran pretty well too with an average running position of 14th, but that has little to do with this car. However, he has never earned a top ten on a 1.5-mile intermediate track. The closest he came was at the wildly unfair Nashville debacle this year where he finished 9th but had an average running position of 26th. Given all that, it's hard to imagine Hemric maintaining his qualifying position.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoDenny Hamlin sits 27 points behind the playoff cutline to make the Championship Four, which means he will likely either need to win at Homestead or Martinsville and/or benefit from a poor finish from Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and/or William Byron. Hamlin can definitely win at Homestead. He's done so three times before, but it never benefited him in a championship battle as he was mathematically eliminated in 2009, didn't make the playoffs in 2013, and his win wasn't in the playoffs in 2020. He has tended to struggle more at Homestead in the races where his championship chances were on the line. Nonetheless, the Toyotas tend to have dominant intermediate speed this year and Hamlin is starting 4th, so he's definitely capable of winning, especially if his pit crew doesn't let him down like it did at Kansas.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoJustin Haley delivered his best qualifying run of the season at Homestead yesterday when he qualified 10th. The Spire Motorsports cars are obviously faster in qualifying than the Rick Ware Racing cars, but Ryan Sparks is a worse crew chief than Chris Lawson and seems to struggle with setups as a race progresses. As a result, Haley is really running not much differently at Spire than he was at Ware even if the cars are faster. Nonetheless, Haley is good at holding his position and rarely finishes worse than he starts. While he'll likely do so today as all his previous finishes at Homestead have been in the 20s and intermediates don't seem to be one of his best track types, the speed of Spire's cars should keep him on the lead lap all day and he'll likely finish around 15th.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoAfter being eliminated from the NASCAR playoffs in the Round of 12, Austin Cindric doesn't have a great deal at stake at Homestead, but his 36th-place qualifying run was definitely a disappointment. While the Fords in general were very slow in qualifying as none of them qualified in the top ten, Cindric has had a history of qualifying well on 1.5-mile intermediates in the past. Admittedly, not so much at Homestead where he qualified 26th in both of his previous races. Although Cindric usually finishes worse than he starts, he did improve to 19th and 12th in his previous two starts and they weren't particularly lucky either, so if the Fords have any speed whatsoever, he might be able to get a top twenty, but also don't be surprised if most of the Ford teams are slow all day.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoAlthough Chris Buescher missed the playoffs, he still is the highest-ranking non-playoff driver in points as the No. 17 driver sits 17th in points exactly 17 points ahead of both Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace. While Buescher is typically always fast on road courses, he's a lot more difficult to predict on ovals as he tends to almost alternate between fast and slow races, even at the same track (he performed vastly differently in the two Kansas races). Like his No. 17 predecessor Matt Kenseth, he tends to qualify badly also so it's hard to predict which races he'll slice through the field and which races he won't. Homestead probably won't be a good race though as he qualified 21st, Fords have usually lacked speed on 1.5-mile intermediates, and Buescher has actually never finished better than 13th there despite his anomalous 57 laps led in 2021.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoJosh Berry currently sits 99 points behind Carson Hocevar and remains just barely mathematically eligible for the Rookie of the Year award. He needs to keep Hocevar's lead over him to 120 points or fewer to not be eliminated, and he'll probably do that if he doesn't crash. Unfortunately, Berry leads the NASCAR Cup Series with 21 incidents to Hocevar's 12 and 9 crash DNFs to Hocevar's 2, which is almost entirely the reason why he is losing the RotY battle to begin with even though he has a faster car. Although Berry did qualify 12th and was actually the fastest Ford, the Stewart-Haas Racing cars have tended to have horrible intermediate setups with the Next Gen car while the Spire Motorsports cars have improved, so Hocevar will probably finish better while Berry, who wasn't even good there in the Xfinity Series, will likely fall backward.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoBubba Wallace will start Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway from the eighth position, marking the second consecutive race at the site where he will start inside the Top 10. In five previous starts at Homestead, Wallace scored two finishes with positive Place Differential, and he has one top-10 finish, which he gained in his last appearance at the Florida track in 2023. After 33 races completed this season, Wallace has 13 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 15.4. Outside of finishing 13 laps down in the first Las Vegas race at the beginning of the year, Wallace placed 17th or better in all races at 1.5-mile Intermediate tracks, including a top-10 at Texas. In practice, Wallace ranked seventh in overall lap averages while ranking among the Top 10 fastest in all other categories on speed. Wallace's practice speeds and results at Intermediate tracks this year are favorable, indicating that he will compete for a top-10 finish. But Wallace's high starting position gives him low upside, making it difficult to recommend him outside of tournament games.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
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