Final Rankings: Texas I, 2017

brad keselowski photo

Kez took over the top spot in my final Texas driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Here are my final driver rankings for tomorrow’s  Cup race at Texas. I compiled them by crunching the practice and qualifying data from Texas on Friday and Saturday, and then melding it with the historical data:

  1. Brad Keselowski
  2. Martin Truex Jr.
  3. Joey Logano
  4. Chase Elliott
  5. Kyle Larson
  6. Kevin Harvick
  7. Jimmie Johnson
  8. Kyle Busch
  9. Matt Kenseth
  10. Jamie McMurray
  11. Ryan Blaney
  12. Denny Hamlin
  13. Kurt Busch
  14. Erik Jones
  15. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  16. Ryan Newman
  17. Austin Dillon
  18. AJ Allmendinger
  19. Trevor Bayne
  20. Kasey Kahne
  21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
  22. Clint Bowyer
  23. Aric Almirola
  24. Daniel Suarez
  25. Ty Dillon
  26. Paul Menard
  27. Michael McDowell
  28. Danica Patrick
  29. Chris Buescher
  30. Landon Cassill
  31. David Ragan
  32. JJ Yeley
  33. Matt DiBenedetto
  34. Cole Whitt
  35. Corey LaJoie
  36. Gray Gaulding
  37. Reed Sorenson
  38. Jeffrey Earnhardt
  39. Timmy Hill
  40. Derrike Cope

3 thoughts on “Final Rankings: Texas I, 2017”

  1. Justin

    Why is everone ranking Harvick so low? Trust me I am not a fan of his so I am pretty unbiased.

    He was quite a bit faster than the guys listed in front of him. I am not looking historical on this track so much because of the repave/converation changes, but even if you did he has been in the top 10 in the last 5 races here.

  2. Jed Henson Post author

    I’ve got him 6th. He’s not higher for several reasons. First, he did win qualifying, but he wasn’t fastest in any of the three practices. I’ve got him ranked third best in the prelims overall (three practices plus qualifying).
    Also, the track changes probably do reduce the predictive value of the historical data, but not to zero. I’ve got him ranked thus in the historical data:
    – last four Texas prelims: 11th
    – similar track prelims: 7th
    – last 15 races: 8th
    – last 4 races: 18th
    – similar track races: 4th
    – last four Texas races: 2nd
    When you mash all that data up, 6th seems fair.

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