Update: I’ve posted my final Charlotte I 2016 driver rankings, which improve upon these early rankings.
Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Charlotte. 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;
- the loop data for the past four races at Charlotte;
- the loop data for the past eight races at the other tracks in the Large Ovals track group (i.e., Fontana, Kansas, Atlanta, Texas, Chicagoland, Michigan and Kentuck);
- the practice and qualifying data for the past four races at Charlotte; and
- the practice and qualifying data for past eight races at the aforementioned Large Ovals.
Plus, I tweaked the results obtained with the above with data pulled from the All Star and Showdown races. The results:
- Kevin Harvick
- Carl Edwards
- Joey Logano
- Brad Keselowski
- Kurt Busch
- Kyle Busch
- Martin Truex, Jr.
- Denny Hamlin
- Matt Kenseth
- Jimmie Johnson
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
- Chase Elliott
- Kyle Larson
- Ryan Newman
- Kasey Kahne
- Austin Dillon
- Jamie McMurray
- Greg Biffle
- Ryan Blaney
- Tony Stewart
- Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
- Paul Menard
- Aric Almirola
- Trevor Bayne
- AJ Allmendinger
- Clint Bowyer
- Danica Patrick
- Casey Mears
- Brian Scott
- David Ragan
- Chris Buescher
- Landon Cassill
- Regan Smith
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Michael McDowell
- Michael Annett
- Cole Whitt
- Josh Wise
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Reed Sorenson