NASCAR Cup Series points and wins leader Kyle Larson will be first to the green flag Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero Sugar 400, the final race of the 26-race regular season. He’ll have one of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, William Byron, alongside him on the front row.
The second row of the Daytona starting grid will consist of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. Denny Hamlin, Larson’s competition for the regular-season title, will start third. Hamlin’s teammate Kyle Busch will start next to him in third.
“Denny runs well at Daytona, so I am glad we have a bit of a cushion in the points,” Larson said. “But that lead can be gone in an instant, so I hope to avoid all the craziness and have a good solid finish.”
NASCAR’s formula for setting race starting grids that uses car owner points and previous race results and fastest laps resulted in three Hendrick drivers in the top-five for the start of Saturday night’s race, as reigning Series champion Chase Elliott in fifth. He’ll share row three on the grid with previous weekend Michigan race winner Ryan Blaney.
Other top-10 starters will include Martin Truex Jr., Kurt Busch, Matt DiBenedetto and Brad Keselowski.
One playoff berth remains, with Richard Childress teammates Tyler Reddick and Austin Dillon in contention to claim that final spot on points. Reddick, who is in the provisional transfer spot, has a 25-point cushion on Dillon and will start 10 positions ahead of his teammate. Reddick will start 17th and Dillon 27th.
“I played a big part in that excitement in the last Daytona cutoff race,” Reddick said. “I think you’ll expect to see drivers that were as desperate as I was in that race to try and get up front and get control of the race and win for their team and all their partners. It’s just going to be a matter of trying to have an understanding in the back of your head or have a point that you kind of have within yourself. Like okay, this is my fun meter. If we can stay within, we’re good. If we go over here, etc. We’re trying to make the playoffs, right? But we’re also trying to get tenth and get that extra point if we can, too. So, there are a lot of things around. We’re going to try and control what we can. Someone going in and winning that race in Daytona is something that we can’t really control unless we win that race. While it’s a tough spot to be in, I’m excited to be back behind the wheel of the Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet and hopefully at the end of the night, we are the ones in the playoffs.”
