Analyzing The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Season At The Olympic Break

With all of NASCAR's top three series on hiatus for two weeks, while NBC airs coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games, it feels like a good time to break down the big picture. When action resumes, there will be only four races left before the Cup Series playoffs begin and then only ten more afterward before a champion is crowned.

Using the same analytical metrics cited in previous posts (and are explained here ), here is a look at where each driver's performance stands thus far in 2024.

Simply put, there's Kyle Larson and everybody else. This should come as no surprise, considering that Larson is currently the Cup Series points leader despite not being able to race in the Coca-Cola 600, and he has also accumulated several poor finishes that were outside his control. His raw performance has been head and shoulders above the field, and he should be considered the heavy title favorite.

Larson leads the Cup Series in Average Running Position, is second in Pass Differential, and owns a nearly clean sweep of the highlighted advanced metrics. He also has the most TDR wins, top-fives, and top-10s, owns the highest individual race score (355.38 at Las Vegas) and has the highest average ranking. He's having the most dominant season any driver has had since his own 10-win 2021 campaign.

Behind Larson, three other drivers have emerged into a miniature "best of the rest" tier: Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, and Tyler Reddick. Hamlin has three race wins, tied with Christopher Bell and William Byron, trailing only Larson's four, while Reddick has been hyper-consistent, particularly recently. Blaney, meanwhile, continues to vastly overachieve with a struggling Team Penske organization (which currently holds a 15.509 Equipment Rating).

It's never easy to predict NASCAR's playoff system, but those may be your best guesses for who could join Larson in the championship round. Christopher Bell could be another candidate, though he has been incredibly hot and cold in 2024. If there's one contender to raise some red flags on, it would be Chase Elliott. Elliott has pieced together a solid campaign but has also been the luckiest driver in the series according to the metrics, which may eventually regress to the norm.

Some drivers who probably won't compete for the title but are having better seasons than they appear to on the surface include Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch. All race fans know these two drivers have immense talent, but with the respective struggles of Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing in 2024, they are fighting for their lives to make the playoffs.

Drivers In The Playoffs But Trailing In The Metrics

On the flip side of the coin, three drivers will be in the playoffs but are well outside the top 16 in the metrics: Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, and Austin Cindric. With Suarez and Cindric, this is due to locking themselves in with wins despite being outside the playoff picture on points, while Bowman -- who also has a win -- would still be safely in regardless. Given he's driving for one of the best teams in the sport, it's hard to be impressed with his season.

Finally, it's worth noting just how deep the Cup Series field is in 2024. Of the 36 drivers who've run at least ten races, 31 currently boast an average TDR score of at least 75 (100 is considered average), 28 are above 80, and 25 are above 90. Parity has been on the rise since the introduction of the NextGen car in 2022, and this field may be the most competitive yet.

They're all chasing Larson, though, and only time will tell if anyone can emerge from the pack to catch him. The only thing that's certain is that the remainder of the 2024 season should be an exciting dash to the finish line.

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