The NASCAR Cup Series is in Daytona this week for the second to last race before the playoffs. This will be a week that anyone can win and punch their ticket to the playoffs so we should be in for a wild race. The superspeedway racing we will see will be tight pack racing which usually results in large wrecks so making it to the end of the race is a big factor.
The most important aspect to take into account is place differential potential for the drivers in your lineups. Fast laps will be spread throughout the field and the leaders will change continuously throughout the race so place differential and finish position are the biggest factors to score points. Also salary in your DFS lineups will not be relevant as you do not need to use all the salary when creating your lineups, it's all about place differential this week.
Top Place Differential Plays
Denny Hamlin
Tyler Reddick
Bubba Wallace
Christopher Bell
Ross Chastain
Alex Bowman
Ty Gibbs
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Erik Jones
These drivers start outside the top 15 and are going to be racing towards the front as much as they can. Starting outside the top 15 gives them good place differential potential making them good picks for DFS this week. Hamlin has a good history at Daytona so he will likely be a popular pick along with some drivers starting farther back. Stenhouse, Bell, and Jones will all be some of the higher owned drivers due to starting far back in the field and having that big place differential potential. Any of these drivers are good options to have spread throughout your lineups this week.
Fades
Joey Logano
William Byron
Kyle Larson
Michael McDowell
Todd Gilliland
Austin Cindric
Chase Briscoe
Josh Berry
Ryan Preece
Joey Gase
Since place differential is so big at Daytona, it is a better option to fade or use a minimal amount of drivers starting closer to the front. These drivers start in the top 9 and will have a difficult path to ending up optimal since there are so many drivers starting farther back with better place differential potential. Laps led are usually split among many drivers at Daytona so these drivers do not have the opportunity to lead a bunch of laps and get a ton of dominator points like at a normal track. Overall it is a better strategy to use drivers starting farther back. If you do want to use one of these drivers, you will only want to use a max of one in a lineup. I have included Joey Gase as a fade as well as it seems that car is significantly off the pace and I expect him to get lapped several times throughout the race.
Cheap Options
Shane Van Gisbergen
Corey Lajoie
Carson Hocevar
Zane Smith
John Hunter Nemechek
Daniel Hemric
Cody Ware
Parker Retzlaff
BJ McLeod
All of these drivers are priced under the $7000 salary on Draftkings and they have big place differential potential. They all start outside the top 25 meaning if they stay out of trouble they will have an opportunity to be some of the higher point scorers. Lajoie especially will be a popular pick as he has run upfront here many times and will likely be doing everything he can to get a win here.
These drivers could implement different strategies as well, drivers like McLeod, Ware, and Retzlaff I expect to ride in the back most of the race to avoid the wrecks which has ended up being a good strategy in the past if a lot of the field wrecks. I expect other drivers like Lajoie, Zane Smith, Nemechek and Hocevar to be a little more aggressive and race in the pack. Getting the right group of drivers in one lineup together that start farther back in the back and miss all the wrecks is the key to winning big at Daytona.
Precarious Play of the Week
Martin Truex Jr.
Truex is very close to clinching a playoff berth on points. He only needs some solid points for this race and he is in. I expect him to ride in the back all race until the very end. He may even ride in the back the whole way and not put himself in any risky spots to potentially get in a wreck. He starts in 17th so there is a situation where I think he rides in the back most of the race and if there are only a handful of undamaged cars at the end, he could go up and race and end up with a top 5 finish. If he does that I think he would end up being one of the better point scorers for the race. So he is a risky play, but if you construct your lineup to be correlated with his situation he could be a solid option.
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