NASCAR

DraftKings NASCAR DFS Picks for Phoenix: Fantasy NASCAR Strategy and Picks for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race

We’ve made it to the end of another NASCAR season, with four drivers set to duke it out to claim the title of 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Champion.

Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Joey Logano, and Tyler Reddick are your four championship contenders, while drivers like Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Martin Truex Jr. are just along for the ride. In Truex’s case, he’d love to win his final race as a full-time driver, and he starts in the best position to do so, from the pole.

That said, the championship race is all about the four title contenders, with 33% of the possible two-driver combinations finishing inside the top three places together since the title race moved to Phoenix. These are clearly the drivers to target in all formats, but they’ll also be highly rostered.

However, there are 36 other drivers in this race looking to either find a ride for next year, prove a point, or pad some stats, so we can’t discount them.

So one last time in 2024, before we jump into my picks, don’t forget all my NASCAR projections can be found in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

Here are my NASCAR DFS picks for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Cash Game Picks

Ryan Blaney ($11,200): Blaney holds the second-highest Perfect% of the weekend behind only Christopher Bell, who we should discount slightly as a non-championship driver (it’s hard for the model to capture championship contender effects given the extremely small sample).

Blaney had the best long-run lap averages in practice, and he was the class of the field among the Championship 4 earlier this year at Phoenix.

Josh Berry ($7400): Berry specializes on the shorter flatter tracks, but he starts 39th after not making a qualifying lap. That’s not a bad thing, as it simply gives him a ton of upside thanks to all the place-differential potential, where he’s only able to move forward.

Bubba Wallace ($7800): For the second race in a row, Wallace starts far enough back to be a cash-game play. It’s likely he’s the test car this weekend for 23XI Racing with teammate Tyler Reddick a Championship 4 contender, but that also gives him the upside to hit on a setup, while his floor is quite high thanks to the 29th-place starting spot.

Wallace has finished 16th or better in each of the last three Phoenix races.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

William Byron ($11,000): Byron to me is the second-place driver in terms of the Championship 4, and I think his practice times back that up.

People may look to Joey Logano and his second-best 10-lap average, but Byron had the second-best overall practice average over 50 laps, less than 0.02 seconds per lap slower than Ryan Blaney, who ran four fewer laps, giving Blaney a slight advantage on tires.

We also need to add in the fact that Byron has been better than Logano this year, and Ford’s attention could be slightly divided with two Team Penske drivers (Blaney and Logano) in the title hunt.

Denny Hamlin ($9800): Hamlin is at one of his lowest price points in years thanks to being a non-championship driver.

However, Hamlin’s car looked incredibly good on the long run, and should something happen to Tyler Reddick, whose car he owns, Hamlin would be in a great spot to just go for the win with no other Toyota drivers in championship contention.

Hamlin had among the least tire falloff in practice, moving from seventh in five-lap average to second in 15-lap average. Yes, Christopher Bell had even less falloff than Hamlin, but Bell also fired off slow enough that Hamlin was still 0.1 seconds per lap faster over 15 laps, which equates to 1.5 seconds.

Daniel Suarez ($7200): This is just a pure pivot play off both Michael McDowell and Austin Dillon, who both start directly behind Suarez in 35th and 36th.

Dillon and McDowell are also cheaper, which may shift ownership their direction, but Suarez was much faster in practice than either of the other two drivers.

By comparison Suarez posted the 19th-best single lap speed and the 24th best overall speed over 55 laps compared to:

  • 33rd and 31st over 36 laps for Dillon
  • 25th and 33rd over 38 laps for McDowell

Suarez is likely the best of the three cars, but he projects for the lowest usage among the three drivers as well.

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We’ve made it to the end of another NASCAR season, with four drivers set to duke it out to claim the title of 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Champion.

Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Joey Logano, and Tyler Reddick are your four championship contenders, while drivers like Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Martin Truex Jr. are just along for the ride. In Truex’s case, he’d love to win his final race as a full-time driver, and he starts in the best position to do so, from the pole.

That said, the championship race is all about the four title contenders, with 33% of the possible two-driver combinations finishing inside the top three places together since the title race moved to Phoenix. These are clearly the drivers to target in all formats, but they’ll also be highly rostered.

However, there are 36 other drivers in this race looking to either find a ride for next year, prove a point, or pad some stats, so we can’t discount them.

So one last time in 2024, before we jump into my picks, don’t forget all my NASCAR projections can be found in the NASCAR Models on FantasyLabs, complete with floor, ceiling, median, and ownership projections.

Let’s not skip the best part — my Perfect% metric — a metric that tells you how often certain racers appear in the optimal lineup when running 10,000 race simulations.

And don’t forget about the tools that FantasyLabs has to offer, like our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

Here are my NASCAR DFS picks for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Cash Game Picks

Ryan Blaney ($11,200): Blaney holds the second-highest Perfect% of the weekend behind only Christopher Bell, who we should discount slightly as a non-championship driver (it’s hard for the model to capture championship contender effects given the extremely small sample).

Blaney had the best long-run lap averages in practice, and he was the class of the field among the Championship 4 earlier this year at Phoenix.

Josh Berry ($7400): Berry specializes on the shorter flatter tracks, but he starts 39th after not making a qualifying lap. That’s not a bad thing, as it simply gives him a ton of upside thanks to all the place-differential potential, where he’s only able to move forward.

Bubba Wallace ($7800): For the second race in a row, Wallace starts far enough back to be a cash-game play. It’s likely he’s the test car this weekend for 23XI Racing with teammate Tyler Reddick a Championship 4 contender, but that also gives him the upside to hit on a setup, while his floor is quite high thanks to the 29th-place starting spot.

Wallace has finished 16th or better in each of the last three Phoenix races.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

William Byron ($11,000): Byron to me is the second-place driver in terms of the Championship 4, and I think his practice times back that up.

People may look to Joey Logano and his second-best 10-lap average, but Byron had the second-best overall practice average over 50 laps, less than 0.02 seconds per lap slower than Ryan Blaney, who ran four fewer laps, giving Blaney a slight advantage on tires.

We also need to add in the fact that Byron has been better than Logano this year, and Ford’s attention could be slightly divided with two Team Penske drivers (Blaney and Logano) in the title hunt.

Denny Hamlin ($9800): Hamlin is at one of his lowest price points in years thanks to being a non-championship driver.

However, Hamlin’s car looked incredibly good on the long run, and should something happen to Tyler Reddick, whose car he owns, Hamlin would be in a great spot to just go for the win with no other Toyota drivers in championship contention.

Hamlin had among the least tire falloff in practice, moving from seventh in five-lap average to second in 15-lap average. Yes, Christopher Bell had even less falloff than Hamlin, but Bell also fired off slow enough that Hamlin was still 0.1 seconds per lap faster over 15 laps, which equates to 1.5 seconds.

Daniel Suarez ($7200): This is just a pure pivot play off both Michael McDowell and Austin Dillon, who both start directly behind Suarez in 35th and 36th.

Dillon and McDowell are also cheaper, which may shift ownership their direction, but Suarez was much faster in practice than either of the other two drivers.

By comparison Suarez posted the 19th-best single lap speed and the 24th best overall speed over 55 laps compared to:

  • 33rd and 31st over 36 laps for Dillon
  • 25th and 33rd over 38 laps for McDowell

Suarez is likely the best of the three cars, but he projects for the lowest usage among the three drivers as well.

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