The NASCAR Cup Series heads West for the second road course of the season. Sonoma Raceway hosts the most elite stock car racing series on Sunday. The Toyota Save Mart 350 picks are live for Sunday afternoon’s action. It’s the final Fox broadcast of the season as we’ll switch to NBC as of next week for Iowa. Road races are tricky. We want the position differential and top scoring drivers. But at the same time, those minimal dominator points do make marginal differences. However, we know the lineup building strategies. We understand the importance of position differential and finishing position. There’s a freshly repaved track ahead of us for Sunday’s action. Take a look at Sunday’s NASCAR DFS Toyota Save Mart 350 picks for your DraftKings and FanDuel lineups.
Toyota Save Mart 350 Picks: The Top 10
- Joey Logano (#22 Team Penske)
- Tyler Reddick (#45 23XI Racing)
- Ryan Blaney (#12 Team Penske)
- Chase Elliott (#9 Hendrick Motorsports)
- Kyle Larson (#5 Hendrick Motorsports)
- William Byron (#24 Hendrick Motorsports)
- Daniel Suarez (#99 Trackhouse Racing)
- Alex Bowman (#48 Hendrick Motorsports)
- Ross Chastain (#1 Trackhouse Racing)
- Ty Gibbs (#54 Joe Gibbs Racing)
Normally we would clamor and fall over ourselves regarding speed and qualifying. But at the end of the day, this is a road course. Are there road course winners in this group? Yes. Chase Elliott was arguably the best road course driver prior to the NextGen car. Tyler Reddick has had plenty of success on road courses in the last two years. Kyle Larson, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, and Ross Chastain have all won on road courses in the last couple of years. Ty Gibbs hopefully learned some valuable information in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race. We don’t want to live too heavily in this range. At most, you are likely playing two drivers from this group in your lineups. Only one or two drivers are likely to collect the dominator points in this range. We need to prioritize position differential and finishing position.
Which Toyota Save Mart 350 Picks Got A Points Movement Bump?
I would normally break this section up. However, we have to view “value” differently for a road course. We become obsessed with 5X, 6X, and 7X value for most races. For road courses, specifically on DraftKings, you hope to average 45+ fantasy points per driver to hit the optimal lineup. So think about what a driver needs to do to hit the optimal lineup. The below drivers offer plenty of position differential. And yes, they vary from expensive plays to value options. You can mix and match these plays with potential dominators from the top 10. Or you could just as easily play drivers from the group below. Mind you, if that’s the case, you really need the drivers starting in the top 15 to bust. But these drivers will draw heavy rostership.
- Martin Truex Jr. – Starting P21
- Denny Hamlin – Starting P25
- Austin Cindric – Starting P28
- Kyle Busch – Starting P29
- Chris Buescher – Starting P26
- Will Brown – Starting P24
- Cam Waters – Starting P31
- Brad Keselowski – Starting P35
- Justin Haley – Starting P27
- John Hunter Nemechek (P37) and Erik Jones (P38) – Starting in the Back Row
Obviously, there are good plays among these Toyota Save Mart 350 picks. And also, some options we should avoid. Earlier in this week’s Sonoma Preview, we noted that Austin Cindric is a trendy play. Yes, he won at Gateway last week, but the road course background plays to his strengths. It’s just a mystery why his teammates qualified P1 and P3 and he’s starting outside the top 25. But we can also assume drivers like Kyle Busch and Chris Buescher can move up. Martin Truex Jr. will be popular. The repaved track presented some interesting practice and qualifying results. Truthfully, Joe Gibbs Racing showed up a bit flat in qualifying. But this is still a track where we want win equity and position differential. MTJ and Buescher provide a bit of both.
Toyota Save Mart 350 Picks
DraftKings
- Chase Elliott – $9,300; Starting P4
- Ty Gibbs – $9,000; Starting P10
- Chris Buescher – $8,600; Starting P26
- Austin Cindric – $8,200; Starting P28
- Kyle Busch – $7,700; Starting P29
- Will Brown – $7,200; Starting P24
Obviously, we play a good amount of chalk in this lineup. But there’s a lot of chalk for this race. But we have four drivers starting outside the top 20 that offer position differential. We also have two drivers from the top 10 with win equity. This lineup can arguably be played in cash games, but I mostly engage with tournaments. I’m fairly intrigued by Ty Gibbs. Sure, he wrecked out of Saturday’s Xfinity Series race, but I think that race was largely used as practice for him. Shane van Gisbergen won the race, but what I found interesting was that Gibbs was shadowing SVG’s run over the last couple of laps of the first stage prior to pitting. It was as if he was trying to get a feel for what the road course specialist saw and how to shave seconds off his lap times.
FanDuel
- Martin Truex Jr. – $14,000; Starting P21
- Ty Gibbs – $12,000; Starting P10
- Chris Buescher – $9,500; Starting P26
- Denny Hamlin – $8,500; Starting P25
- Will Brown – $5,500; Starting P24
This lineup keeps a similar core to the DraftKings build. However, on FanDuel we can completely throw out the laps led points for this race. There are only 11 of them on FanDuel. Position differential and win equity matter here. A good pivot for this lineup? You can move off Gibbs and Brown if necessary. Even Denny Hamlin isn’t necessary a great play. But he is just $8,500 and starting P25 for this race. Buescher has plenty of top-10 equity and offers PD. He’ll be insanely popular in addition to Truex. Overall, this is the kind of lineup construction to seek out for FanDuel on a road course.
White Flag Thoughts Before You Go
One aspect of this race that doesn’t get discussed enough is salary management. A vast majority of DFS players will spend at least 98% of their budget. There are enough place differential options that can pay off their starting spot with a little chaos. And we didn’t really touch on plays like Chase Briscoe, Zane Smith, Michael McDowell, Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, etc. You can certainly build a unique, but sound lineup, and leave salary on the table. That can apply to both DraftKings and FanDuel. Get a little weird if building multiple lineups for Sonoma. Best of luck for Sunday’s race as it is the last Fox broadcast of the season!