Early Rankings: Chicagoland, 2015

brad keselowski photo

Brad Keselowski tops my early Chicagoland rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Chicagoland. I compiled them by crunching:

  • The loop data for the past 15 Sprint Cup races (excluding Daytona, Talladega, Sonoma and Watkins Glen);
  • the loop data for the past four races;
  • the loop data for the past four races at Chicagoland;
  • the loop data for the past eight races at other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Michigan, Kentucky, Fontana, Charlotte, Texas, Atlanta and Kansas);
  • the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Chicagoland; and
  • the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.

The results:

  1. Brad Keselowski
  2. Joey Logano
  3. Matt Kenseth
  4. Kyle Busch
  5. Kevin Harvick
  6. Jimmie Johnson
  7. Kurt Busch
  8. Carl Edwards
  9. Martin Truex Jr.
  10. Denny Hamlin
  11. Kyle Larson
  12. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  13. Jeff Gordon
  14. Kasey Kahne
  15. Ryan Newman
  16. Jamie McMurray
  17. Clint Bowyer
  18. Austin Dillon
  19. Paul Menard
  20. Aric Almirola
  21. Tony Stewart
  22. Greg Biffle
  23. David Ragan
  24. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  25. Sam Hornish Jr.
  26. A.J. Allmendinger
  27. Ryan Blaney(i)
  28. Danica Patrick
  29. Casey Mears
  30. Justin Allgaier
  31. Trevor Bayne
  32. Brian Scott
  33. Landon Cassill
  34. Brett Moffitt
  35. Michael Annett
  36. Cole Whitt
  37. David Gilliland
  38. Alex Bowman
  39. Michael McDowell
  40. J.J Yeley
  41. Josh Wise
  42. Jeb Burton
  43. Matt DiBenedetto
  44. Reed Sorenson
  45. Travis Kvapil
  46. Timmy Hill