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

A NASCAR Cup Series Champion will be crowned Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.

Four drivers — Kyle Larson, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, and Christopher Bell — are eligible to win the NASCAR Cup Series Championship. The best finisher of these four will be crowned the 2023 champion.

Notably, every single year since this format started in 2014, the eventual series champion was also the winner of the finale. That means it’s extremely likely one of these four take the win, and you should absolutely be stuffing these drivers into your lineups.

The key will be to figure out which of these four drivers has the edge, and then build your portfolio around them accordingly.

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 Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Championship Contender Picks

While you’ll want to have exposure to all four drivers in a multi-entry portfolio, my preferred strategy is to just stick by the projections.

Ryan Blaney starts the deepest of the four contenders in 15th place, but that also gives him the most place-differential potential. That’s going to be important when, as quite often happens, the championship four all end up inside the top six by the end of the race.

With 312 laps scheduled, there is opportunity for dominator points as well, and that’s where I think the early clean air for William Byron really helps. Byron and Larson were the two fastest cars at Phoenix earlier this year for the vast majority of the race, and by controlling the initial start and having preferential pit position, as well as a better practice session than his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, I like Byron to be the potential dominator from this group.

He also projects for slightly less usage than Larson by my model, so I definitely like flipping the exposures of the two and going slightly heavier on Byron. The potential dominator upside more than makes up for a couple of places of place differential lost.

Thus, I’d focus my championship core around Blaney and Byron, but certainly want to mix in some Larson and Bell as well. Bell had a very solid car on the long run, so in tournament formats a severe underweight play on Larson makes a lot of sense.

That’s where we enter in the hidden fifth contender…

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Tournament Picks

Kevin Harvick ($9500): At just $9500, Harvick is a steal at this price point should this be any other race. But given the fact that it’s the championship race and the four title contenders are the heavy favorites, you’d be forgiven if you thought passing on Harvick was wise.

However, Harvick will absolutely factor into this finish if he doesn’t have any issues during the race.

Harvick has 20 straight top-10 finishes here, and nine wins in his 23-year career. Being the final race of his career, and with no teammates in championship contention, Harvick is in it for himself. He wants to prevent a winless final year and go out with a win.

I mentioned earlier that Larson and Byron were the two fastest for most of the first Phoenix race this year, but Harvick was actually the best at the end of the race. He just got an unfortunate set of restarts at the end that cost him the win.

Harvick once again had a strong car in practice, and he often even outperforms his practice efforts in the race.

A true DFS home-run play would be to heavily fade Larson and increase your Kevin Harvick exposure.

Martin Truex Jr. ($10,200): Another opposite direction I’d go would be to fade Byron by locking Martin Truex Jr. into a handful of lineups, as these two display plenty of negative correlation.

It’s possible Truex grabs the early lead from Larson as an attempt to play both offense (for himself) and defense (for his championship-contending teammate Christopher Bell).

Should that happen, we obviously lose out on those early possible dominator points that we’re expecting Byron to grab, so while using the FantasyLabs optimizer, make sure you build in some negative correlation between Truex and Byron.

I also like building in negative correlation between Truex and Harvick, because it’s quite unlikely two non-championship drivers in this price range end up in the optimal lineup. So for the subset of lineups where you do plan on using at least one of Harvick or Truex, pick just one of the two in the bulk of that subset of lineups. 

Harrison Burton ($5500): To fit in 2-3 expensive options, we’re going to need some punt plays, and Harrison Burton fits the bill the best in a big tournament format.

Burton qualified 25th, a little farther ahead than where most people typically think of him, so that should keep his usage down. In fact, of the cars priced $6000 or less, Burton is the driver that most outpaces in Perfect% relative to his projected usage.

Burton was 22nd in 10-lap average in practice and is coming off a strong run at another short-flat track in Martinsville. He’s a great addition to help squeeze in those expensive drivers.

Phoenix DraftKings DFS Cash Game Picks

Brad Keselowski…maybe: There’s plenty of built-in safety thanks to how qualifying shook out with Brad Keselowski starting 31st after having Cole Custer qualify his car while his wife gave birth to their first son — that is, if Keselowski even races.

If Custer ends up starting the race in place of Keselowski, Keselowski would score zero points. Custer is not an available DFS option.

If Keselowski makes it to Phoenix and starts the race, then he’s a great cash-game option.

Chase Briscoe ($7500): Briscoe is also an attractive cash-game option while rolling off from the 26th place starting spot. Briscoe has been one of the best cars in the three races at Phoenix in the Next Gen car. He won the spring race last year then finished fourth in last year’s championship race at Phoenix.

Earlier this year he was once again fast at this track, placing 10th in green-flag speed and 12th in average running position. Look for him to find his way forward at Phoenix once again.