NASCAR heads to The Circuit of the Americas this week for the first road course race of the season. Stage breaks are back so the top drivers will be pitting before stage cautions and others that need points may be staying out to collect stage points making their last stage a lesser chance to be up front. Place differential will be important as COTA is a huge tracking making the dominator points limited for laps led and fastest laps.
POTENTIAL DOMINATORS
Ty Gibbs
Tyler Reddick
William Byron
Kyle Larson
Reddick won this race last season and had speed again in practice. He has become one of the better road racers and starts up front, so he is a solid option to be a contender and lead early. Gibbs has had a ton of speed lately and is great on road courses, he will be a favorite coming into the race and he starts up front as well. Byron is another one that is good on road courses and is on pole. All 3 of these guys have a chance to lead early and to contend through the race. My concern is with the limited laps and potential chaos at the end, drivers starting up front will need to win since they have no place differential potential. The driver you pick starting top 5 will need to lead and finish top 3 to score well which is risky if we see a late caution. Larson is a top play this week as he has some place differential and should be one of the fastest cars in the race.
PLACE DIFFERENTIAL PLAYS
Shane Van Gisbergen
AJ Allmendinger
Daniel Suarez
Michael McDowell
Alex Bowman
Ryan Blaney
Joey Logano
Chase Briscoe
SVG and Allmendinger are both road course specialist and should be able to run top 10 with upside for more. They both have shown to be some of the top guys to beat in every road course they have entered in NASCAR. My only concern is the Kaulig cars have not looked very good this season. Suarez ran great here last year and has been good on road courses recently. He should have top 10 potential. McDowell is a top road racer and will be a popular play starting 27th. Bowman has some good runs at COTA, and I think he will be low owned for a tournament play. Blaney, Logano, and Briscoe all have some good runs on past road courses and start towards the back giving them some big place differential potential.
CHEAP OPTIONS
Noah Gragson
Todd Gilliland
Brad Keselowski
Erik Jones
Ricky Stenhouse
Zane Smith
Gragson should be a popular pick as he starts dead last and had some decent lap times in practice. He is a great pick for place differential. Gilliland is another that I like that I think will be low owned since so many drivers are priced around him that start farther back. He has some good runs on road courses and was solid in practice. Next group of drivers are picks based on place differential potential starting in the way back. Keselowski, Jones, Stenhouse, Smith all start in the 30s and will be able to move forward and hopefully get good track position as the race goes on to score a lot of points.