We have finally made it to the last race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Martinsville was not short of drama as it took a while to review who would move on to the final round between William Byron and Christopher Bell. Ultimately Byron got in as the fourth driver after Ryan Blaney, with a very good long-run car, advanced to Phoenix with last week’s win. We will take a look at all the championship drivers as part of this week’s Cup Series Championship Preview.
Phoenix Raceway once again plays host to NASCAR’s final race. It probably isn’t the best track for the championship race, but it does sell more tickets around this time of year than Homestead, and Vegas is busy planning for the F1 Vegas race later this month. The way the championship race works is that the four drivers below are only racing each other. Yes, there is a full field of drivers for this race. But whoever finishes first among the four drivers below, will be crowned champion. You don’t even need to win the race, as we saw last year, you just need to beat three other drivers. Let’s take a look at the best drivers for Sunday’s Cup Series Championship Preview!
Cup Series Championship Preview: The Championship Four
Ryan Blaney (#12 Ford)
Blaney is the defending Cup Series champion. In fact, Team Penske has won both championships in the NextGen era and they have a 50% chance of making it three straight. We actually led off with Blaney in the Spring preview for the first Phoenix race. Blaney does perform very well at Phoenix and he just demonstrated incredible long run speed at a short, flat track last week. Blaney has posted a driver rating over 100 in eight straight Phoenix races. In the NextGen era he’s never finished worse than fifth and that includes three straight runner-up finishes. Two of his three wins this year have come on short, flat tracks so this is a great opportunity for him to go back-to-back as the Cup Series champion.
Joey Logano (#22 Ford)
It’s been quite the ride for Logano in the playoffs. We all thought he was eliminated prior to the Round of Eight. But post-race tech inspection disqualified Alex Bowman following the Charlotte ROVAL and Logano won the following week at Vegas. So he’s actually had plenty of time to focus just on Phoenix. Logano has three career wins at Phoenix, including his championship win two years ago where he led 187 laps. His last three Phoenix races haven’t been great. He’s had three straight finishes outside the top 10. While his short track success this season doesn’t compare to his teammate, Ryan Blaney, he did spank the field at the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro and he won at Nashville. There are some comparisons you can make between those two tracks. Otherwise, we’re just hoping the team nails the setup for this race.
Tyler Reddick (#45 Toyota)
Reddick is currently the underdog of the four championship drivers to win it all on Sunday. He’s +300 while Blaney and Byron are +250 and Logano is +275. Reddick is the lone Toyota to qualify for the championship four. But he won his way in fair and square at Homestead. Phoenix isn’t really a track type that plays to Reddick’s strengths. Fortunately, his car’s owner, Denny Hamlin, is pretty good on short, flat tracks. With Joe Gibbs Racing not getting a driver into the championship race, Hamlin and Co. should be all-in on helping Reddick out. Reddick did have a pretty good run here in the spring. He started P6 and finished first and second in the first two stages while leading 68 laps. He finished 10th but he also has a pair of top three finishes in the spring races at Phoenix in 2022 and 2023.
William Byron (#24 Chevrolet)
It took some controversy, but William Byron did qualify for the Championship Four. It’s the second consecutive year Byron will get to race for a championship. It really speaks to how wild NASCAR’s scoring system is. The four championship drivers all have three wins. But Kyle Larson, Byron’s teammate, has six wins and doesn’t make the championship round simply because of some unfortunate circumstances the last few races. Perhaps we need to rethink this system?
But Byron does have a win on his resume at Phoenix. He won this race in the spring of 2023 where he led 64 laps. In last year’s championship race, he started on the pole and led 95 laps but finished behind Blaney and Larson to finish third in the final standings. He also won at Martinsville earlier this year with 88 laps led and he led 51 laps last week. The first Martinsville race marks his last win. That was nearly seven months ago. Fortunately, over the last six playoff races, he’s finished sixth or better.
Cup Series Championship Preview: Wouldn’t Bet Against Them
Kyle Larson (#5 Chevrolet)
Larson will likely follow team orders and do what it takes to make sure Byron wins. The Hendrick Motorsports cars still have plenty to race for regarding the owner’s championship (where the big money is) so I’m not expecting him to completely mail it in. Larson won this race three years ago to claim the 2021 Cup Series Championship. He led 107 laps in that race and then led 201 laps at this track in the spring of 2023 when he finished fourth. None of his six wins came on comparable tracks. However, he was the runner-up in the first Martinsville race and finished third in the first race at Richmond. Between both races, he led 230 laps.
Chase Elliott (#9 Chevrolet)
There’s an argument to be made that Elliott has been better on the comparable tracks than Larson. At the very least, he’s had very good green flag speed. We will acknowledge that he doesn’t have a single top-10 finish in four NextGen races at Phoenix. But in the spring race in 2022 he at least led 50 laps. But he did win this race four years ago for the 2020 Cup Series championship and on four occasions he’s led 90+ laps at Phoenix. He has some momentum coming into this race. He grabbed a top five at Homestead with 81 laps led and he finished as the runner-up last week with 129 laps led but fell short of the win to qualify for this race.
Ross Chastain (#1 Chevrolet)
Chastain doesn’t care if he’s in the championship race or not. He’ll go for the win. Since February 2021, Chastain has the second-best average finish at Phoenix at 9.9 where he’s tied with Denny Hamlin. For transparency, Ryan Blaney is first with a 4.7 average finish. That’s incredibly impressive. The NextGen era has been very good to Chastain at Phoenix. He finished second in the spring of 2022. Then in the championship race that year, which he qualified for, he finished third after starting P25. Even when he wasn’t eligible for the championship last year, he didn’t care. He still won the race with 157 laps led. Ryan Blaney was even complaining that Chastain should have let him pass. But the Watermelon Man doesn’t care. He’s finished sixth or better in four of the last five races at Phoenix.
The Values and Sleepers
Chris Buescher (#17 Ford)
Buescher isn’t much of a sleeper but he’s been priced nicely in the $7K range on DraftKings of late. A year ago, he started P9 and grabbed a top five finish. Earlier this year he backed that up by starting P14 and finishing second in the first Phoenix race. He also grabbed top 10 finishes at Richmond-1 and New Hampshire. What makes him a nice play is that he hasn’t been qualifying well of late. Unlike Martinsville, Phoenix is larger and there’s less of a risk of being lapped if you start deep in the field. He’s qualified P20 or worse in seven of his last eight races entering Phoenix. So there’s likely going to be an opportunity for position differential and this has been a generous track for RFK Racing.
Josh Berry (#4 Ford)
It’s Berry’s swan song in the 4-car after just one year. With SHR shutting down after the 2024 season, it’s Berry’s last chance to take advantage of a team that knows how to set up its car for short, flat tracks. All four SHR cars were pretty solid last week at Martinsville. Berry, along with Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe, and Ryan Preece all finished in the top 16. Even Preece and Briscoe had an average running position in the top 10. Berry has raced in each of the last two spring races at Phoenix. In 2023 he subbed in for Chase Elliott in the 9-car for Hendrick Motorsports and grabbed a top 10. Earlier this year with SHR, he didn’t do great, but he gained 10 spots of PD and finished 26th. On top of all that, he does have a short, flat-track background.
Daniel Suarez (#99 Chevrolet)
We mentioned Ross Chastain not too long ago for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Preview, so why not go with his teammate? Suarez doesn’t carry nearly as much win equity as Chastain does. However, he did finish 11th in this race a year ago and was 13th this past spring. He’s definitely had better speed than finishes on the comparable tracks. But he did finish top 10 at Richmond and Iowa-2. As long as he doesn’t have any issues in this race, he has a top-20 floor. But we also know he has the potential for a top 10 because Trackhouse is capable of surprising us at Phoenix.