The NASCAR Cup Series regular season concludes in seven short weeks.
Once the always chaotic regular season finale at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway finishes, 16 drivers and teams will reset with one thing in mind:
Hoisting the championship trophy at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
The Next Gen car introduced this season has thrown a laundry list of changes at every team in the garage area. Whether it be handling, car setup or pit stops, it’s been a tall order.
Through Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Cup Series teams have had 19 races to show if they are up to the challenge.
Let’s take a look at five of the contenders who appear ready for a championship run.
Chase Elliott
Sunday’s winner at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Elliott heads into the final seven races of the regular season with the points lead. The Hendrick Motorsports driver holds a 47-point advantage over Ryan Blaney.
With his victory in his home state of Georgia, Elliott currently is the only driver with three victories this season. The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion also is tied for the most top-10 finishes (13), and stage wins (five).
As Elliott looks for his first regular season championship, the driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet has been one of the few competitors to not only have the consistency, but the victories to back it up.
Elliott has been strong when the playoffs arrive, where he’s been in the final four the last two years.
Ross Chastain
Chastain seems to be making the news for the wrong reasons. With his recent run-ins with drivers such as Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon, his performance has been slightly overshadowed.
However, the Trackhouse Racing driver has been on par with points leader Elliott. Chastain has the same number of top-10 finishes as Elliott and four more top-five runs than the driver of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9. (10).
With two victories, Chastain continues to battle for the regular season championship and is 50 points behind Elliott at this writing.
A big key for Chastain when the playoffs begin, may be how much respect drivers give him on the track. We’ve seen it before in the playoffs, where tempers boil over in the most crucial moments.
Chastain’s aggressive driving style may vault him into a good position for success, or it could be his demise.
Kyle Larson
The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion has flown under the radar this season compared to last year when he won 10 races. Larson is fourth in points, with one victory and 10 top-10 finishes.
The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has admitted that he and his team aren’t where they want to be.
“We were definitely running stronger and contending more for wins at this point in the year last year,” Larson said earlier in the season. “I still feel like we need to get better, but I do feel like we’re not far from being really good. Just have to continue to work hard and keep trying to be consistent. I had a little bit of inconsistency I feel like on my part a couple months ago. Now, we seem to be rolling OK. I think my last three finishes (before Darlington) were a fourth, a fourth and a sixth. So, that’s been good. We would like to get more stage points and things like that. We’re way closer to the points lead than we were at this point last year, too. I guess you can spin it a couple of different ways to find some positives about it.”
More positives will be coming Larson’s way, with his crew chief Cliff Daniels coming back on top of the pit box this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Daniels was suspended for four races due to Larson’s car losing a wheel on the track at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway.
Ryan Blaney
Outside of his victory in the All-Star race earlier this year at Texas Motor Speedway, Blaney is winless through 19 races.
Though that’s not due to a lack of a speed.
The Team Penske driver ranks second in points, with three top-10 finishes in the last four races. Blaney has also notched three pole positions this season.
Looking back to last year, it wasn’t until the final two races of the regular season that Blaney came alive, notching back-to-back victories at Michigan Int’l Speedway and Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Blaney has shown consistency while others struggle, and it appears only a matter of time before the No. 12 Ford winds up in victory lane.
Kyle Busch
It has not been a pretty four weeks for the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion. In that time span, Busch hasn’t finished better than 20th, and has slipped to fifth in points.
Busch, however, should still be considered a favorite as the series nears the end of the regular season.
The driver of the No. 18 Toyota has been one of the lone bright spots out of the Toyota camp, with one victory to his name, along with 11 top-10 finishes.
His five final four appearances in the past eight seasons shows the consistency that the Joe Gibbs Racing driver can be a player at the end of the season.
As only a select few have been able to show consistency over the span of the 19 races run this season, Busch is one that can be lethal down the stretch, in a pressure-cooking playoff scenario.
These are only five of the drivers in contention to make the 16-spot Cup Series playoff field. Thirteen drivers have won races this season and have a leg up in the race to make the playoffs.
We’ll preview five more contenders next week. To see the current Cup Series standings, Click here.