Whereas Kyle Petty lately voiced doubts about all three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers reaching the Championship 4 regardless of their clear sweep of the opening playoff spherical, Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighed in along with his personal considerations for the Spherical of 12, naming a number of heavyweights, together with Chase Elliott.
The present backside 4 coming into the spherical are Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, and Tyler Reddick. Junior, nevertheless, tipped Logano to claw his manner ahead at Kansas and New Hampshire, whereas suggesting Elliott, regardless of his consistency all through the common season and time spent atop the standings, may very well be in for a tough experience.
He admitted his forecast was intuition greater than science. “No scientific knowledge right here. No, no proof or actual arduous examine to again up this prediction. However my 4 which might be going to wrestle to make it into the subsequent spherical are Chase Elliot, Cindric, Chastain, Reddick. I believe that Logano, who examined at Loudon… I really feel like Loudon and Kansas are two good tracks for Joey. And so I believe he’ll just do sufficient to advance…”
Dale Jr. additional identified how Logano has made a behavior of flipping the swap within the postseason, so he has higher probabilities of making it to the Spherical of 8 greater than others. “Two years in a row, he’s had a really subpar common season, however then after we get into the playoffs and also you have a look at the tracks and also you go, yeah, might see him doing fairly good there…”
On Elliott, Junior’s tone was extra cautious. “They have been essentially the most constant workforce within the storage and led factors, proper? So, I imply, he’s factors main worthy. Led the factors for many of the season. However the place is my confidence? , I assume it’s been simply so quietly doing this that.”
Because the standings sit, Denny Hamlin leads by 26 factors, William Byron holds second regardless of going winless within the playoffs, and Kyle Larson sits third with a 24-point cushion above the cutline. Elliott, in the meantime, finds himself seventh with solely a five-point buffer, a place that shocked Dale Jr., given his grip on the regular-season factors lead.
Nonetheless, Elliott carries favorable numbers into the Spherical of 12. At New Hampshire, he averages 14.7 throughout 11 begins with two top-fives. Kansas has been kinder, the place he owns a ten.4 common end and one win in 19 begins. On the Charlotte Roval, his seven begins have yielded a mean of seven.7 and two wins.
By the stats, the Hendrick Motorsports driver needs to be on regular floor. But his playoff kind tells Junior‘s predictions is perhaps based mostly on the present storyline: a lone top-five at Gateway, a P17 at Darlington, and a P38 at Bristol.
