Update: I’ve posted my final Chicagoland driver rankings, which improve upon the below early rankings.
Here are my early driver rankings for this week’s NASCAR Cup race at Chicagoland. I compiled them by crunching:
- The loop data for the past 15 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:
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Kyle Busch
- Kyle Larson
- Kevin Harvick
- Matt Kenseth
- Brad Keselowski
- Denny Hamlin
- Chase Elliott
- Jimmie Johnson
- Kurt Busch
- Joey Logano
- Erik Jones
- Jamie McMurray
- Ryan Newman
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Austin Dillon
- Ryan Blaney
- Kasey Kahne
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Clint Bowyer
- Daniel Suarez
- Paul Menard
- Trevor Bayne
- Aric Almirola
- AJ Allmendinger
- Danica Patrick
- Ty Dillon
- David Ragan
- Chris Buescher
- Michael McDowell
- Landon Cassill
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Cole Whitt
- #83 Car TBA
- Reed Sorenson
- Gray Gaulding
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- #55 Car TBA
- Carl Long