Optimal: Van Gisbergen, Bell, Zilisch, Bowman, Buescher, Cindric, Haley
GPP: Byron, Larson, Blaney, McDowell, Briscoe, Logano, Herbst, Ty Dillon
NASCAR heads to our first road course of the season as the drivers take on Circuit of the Americas, better known as COTA. NASCAR shortened the track this year by taking away two of the longer straightaways and one of the major passing zones. This change will result in there being 95 laps, compared to the previous 68. This brings a few more dominator points into the equation. There are plenty of great plays on the board, so let’s dive in.
We will start off by addressing the race favorite, Shane Van Gisbergen. SVG was the obvious dominant car in practice, and barring some sort of mistake by him, I am fairly confident he finishes top 3. I am also nearly confident enough to even say he is going to win this race. SVG is in a class of his own at road courses, thanks to his Super-Cars background. He has a few place differential points to gain, a solid chance to lead laps, and the favorite to win, so we are loving SVG today.
We will keep it on the trend of our optimal plays, and move onto Austin Cindric. Cindric has a great road course history and finds himself starting in the very back. He had a couple bad laps in practice, but if I remove those laps, he appears to be a top 15 car at worst. These laps were likely just outliers as he tried different things or were simply just trying to get comfortable with his car. Cindric said after qualifying that they were “struggling in spots”, but had “great raw speed”. The team should be able to get this car dialed in before the green flag.
Our next top play is Alex Bowman. Bowman was very quietly the possible second best car in practice. He also has finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at COTA in the Next-Gen car. We get Bowman starting 21st today, and there really is no argument against him. Bowman is a priority for us this afternoon.
We have a trio of Fords that will garner some ownership as they start deeper in the field. Chris Buescher, Ryan Blaney, and Joey Logano are all viable options. I would rank them Blaney, Buescher, Logano. After practice, I have Blaney as my top Ford slightly, and I love his potential to quietly sneak towards the top 10. Buescher is also a great play in his own right, but Blaney may come in at a fraction of the ownership, making him a great pivot in GPPs.
Moving onto our top tournament plays, where we have a couple Hendrick Motorsports cars to take a look at. The first being William Byron, who checks in as the most expensive driver on the slate. Despite our love for Byron this week, him being the most expensive driver is mind boggling to us. However, this should keep his ownership down in GPPs. Byron was one of the top cars in practice and he could sneak into the top 5 at low-ish ownership this evening.
Next is Kyle Larson, who may be SVGs biggest threat. Larson is an intriguing play, and if you took SVG out of this race, he would be our pick to win. This makes Larson an intriguing pivot in tournaments, given that if SVG has some sort of issue or mistake, Larson is our choice to pounce on the opportunity and dominate. However, we like SVG so much that I am struggling to get too much Larson, but there is a path to Larson being optimal and I wanted to address that potential.
Two drivers that may go overlooked due to their middling prices are Michael McDowell and Chase Briscoe. McDowell is a great road course racer and has even won at a road course in the Cup Series. McDowell moved over to Spire Motorsports this season, and even though McDowell’s practice speed was nothing spectacular, I am impressed at his teammate Hocevar’s speed. If McDowell’s team can get his car closer to Hocevar’s, he could be a competitor this afternoon. Briscoe, on the other hand, is also a good road course driver, and COTA has been his best road course in the Next-Gen era. What intrigues us the most about Briscoe is that his team made great improvements from the first practice run to the second. After the second run, they are trending towards having a top 10 car and it is possible that even more adjustments are needed. We like that the team is trending in the right direction and Briscoe could fly under the radar.
Finally, we will move on down to the value options, where it gets really ugly. In the $6-7k range on Draftkings, Justin Haley is really the only driver I have interest in. He has top 20 upside and is starting in 29th. There are a couple punts that I can get behind in the $5-6k range, the first being Riley Herbst, who may arguably be my favorite option of everyone below $7k. His practice times are some of the best in this range and he also had a full Xfinity race yesterday to become familiar with the new course layout. His 23×11 teammates also put their cars on the front row in qualifying, so the team has some speed. Lastly, Ty Dillon is also viable simply off practice times, as he was just behind Herbst. Kaulig cars have excelled on road courses in the past, so I do not expect his equipment to be a detriment to him. Best of luck this afternoon!