1 week agoRicky Stenhouse Jr. qualified 34th at Martinsville, worst of all the established veterans in competitive cars. However, this isn't particularly a good track for him, as he has never led a lap and has only earned three top-10 finishes with an average finish of 24.1 despite only crashing once here. He did earn his best finish here in the 2023 spring race when he finished eighth, but his speed declined significantly in the second half of 2023 and never completely recovered, and his average running position even in that race was only 17th. From where he's starting, he'll probably gain a fair bit of place-differential points, but he won't even sniff the lead, so he won't score nearly enough lap-leader or fastest-lap points to be viable for DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
2 weeks agoDespite Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s reputation as a superspeedway driver, Homestead has arguably been his worst superspeedway. At all tracks where Stenhouse has failed to ever earn a top-10 finish in the NASCAR Cup Series, he has made more starts at Homestead than any other despite some solid qualifying runs. He might have some DFS value, as his average finish of 21.6 is better than his 27th-place starting position, suggesting he may gain a few positions on place differential. He's also rather cheap at $6,700, but even though he's still technically in the playoffs right now, he's also declined from his peak and it seems like right now the best he can do on a track like this is barely finishing in the top 20 and not leading at all, which won't give him enough points to be a leading DFS option.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoRicky Stenhouse Jr. earned a starting position of 31st for this week's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This will mark the third time this season that Stenhouse will start lower than 30th in the Cup Series. In 19 starts at Las Vegas in his Cup career, Stenhouse has eight top-20 finishes, including last year's March race at the site. After four races so far this season, Stenhouse has four finishes of 21st or better and gained positive Place Differential every time. In practice, Stenhouse ranked 22nd in overall lap averages and displayed top-20 speeds in comparison to the field in the 15 and 20-consecutive-lap average categories. Considering his extremely high upside and practice speeds, Stenhouse is one of the top value options of the week and will compete for a top-20 finish.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
4 weeks agoPhoenix has been a pretty terrible track for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He has only ever placed in the top 10 twice in 24 starts, with both coming in his relative glory days at Roush Fenway Racing in 2017. Since the move to the Next Gen chassis, he has never finished better than 19th and he tends to always finish right around where he starts. Since he is starting 22nd on Sunday, he will likely finish approximately there as well, as he did in both 2023 races and the 2024 winter race. Since he is neither likely to score many place-differential points or score any lap-leader points -- having only led two laps at the track in his career in addition to remaining very crash-prone -- he's pretty much worthless for DFS lineups on Sunday.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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