Dale Earnhardt Jr. predicts NASCAR champion amidst – Sports News
Unlike the NASCAR Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series, which have been dominated all season by Corey Heim and Connor Zilisch, respectively, the Cup Series heads to Phoenix Raceway with no clear favourite for the title.
The championship 4 is made up of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin, who led the sequence with six wins this season, teammate Chase Briscoe, who leads the present drivers’ standings, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, who has led the second most laps all season, and his teammate William Byron, who received the common season crown.
Predicting who will in the end come out on prime at Phoenix Raceway, a monitor typically dominated by Team Penske lately, is, as such, a powerful job. However, Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave it his best shot on his podcast after Byron’s dominant win on the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway.
“The way Byron’s looked and the way he looked this weekend, I think you’ve got to look at him as the favorite,” the 51-year-old mentioned.
As for Hamlin, who’s hoping to finish his two-decade-long await a championship, Earnhardt harbored some considerations, believing “He might feel like he’s on a little delicate ice.
“I’ve been a little bit surprised by Denny’s, ‘Man, it’s always something, it’s something every week, it’s one of the three things that happens every week,’ right? He’s had these comments to the media, and I’ve been like, ‘Man, Denny’s not holding back as much as he used to.’
“There’s always been problems. There’s always been things. Maybe he’s having a little bit more of the mechanical woes than traditional. But he’s had a really good year too, at the same time. I’m a little surprised.
“I guess he’s at that point in his career where he’s like, ‘I don’t give a s—.’ I’m just going to get out of the car and go, ‘Yeah, this sucks.’”
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By comparability, Byron is “going in there not worrying about that thing’s breaking. Now, Denny might be a little less confident.”
Despite these considerations, Earhardt remained assured Hamlin would “overcome” any worries he might harbor concerning the Toyota’s prolonged listing of mechanical points suffered this season, together with a valve spring downside which ended each his and Briscoe’s races at Martinsville.
Earnhardt felt he had no actual clue who held the benefit heading to Arizona, suggesting Briscoe additionally wouldn’t be a shock winner. “Chase Briscoe’s won races there,” he famous. “They’ve been strong as anybody. They’ve got more points. They’ve scored more points in the playoffs than anybody. They’ve done the Playoffs better than any other team.”
Ultimately, Earhardt labeled the 4 finalists’ possibilities as “equal,” saying he believed the combat to be “wide open.”
Of the championship 4 drivers, every has received at Phoenix at the very least as soon as, with Hamlin a two-time winner, whereas Larson’s sole win in 2021 helped secure him his solely title up to now. However, one issue that would play into Hamlin and Briscoe’s favor is that they are going to have teammate Christopher Bell, the back-to-back spring race winner, to lean on main up to Sunday’s race.
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