Early Rankings: Fontana, 2016

Kevin Harvick photo

Kevin Harvick tops my early Fontana driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Update: I’ve completed my final Fontana driver rankings.

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

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

The results:

  1. Kevin Harvick
  2. Kyle Busch
  3. Jimmie Johnson
  4. Joey Logano
  5. Kurt Busch
  6. Brad Keselowski
  7. Matt Kenseth
  8. Denny Hamlin
  9. Carl Edwards
  10. Martin Truex Jr.
  11. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  12. Chase Elliott
  13. Ryan Newman
  14. Austin Dillon
  15. Kyle Larson
  16. Kasey Kahne
  17. Ryan Blaney
  18. Jamie McMurray
  19. Greg Biffle
  20. Clint Bowyer
  21. Paul Menard
  22. AJ Allmendinger
  23. Aric Almirola
  24. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  25. Brian Vickers
  26. Casey Mears
  27. Trevor Bayne
  28. Danica Patrick
  29. David Ragan
  30. Brian Scott
  31. Chris Buescher
  32. Landon Cassill
  33. Regan Smith
  34. Michael Annett
  35. Cole Whitt
  36. Michael McDowell
  37. Josh Wise
  38. Matt DiBenedetto
  39. Jeffrey Earnhardt