2022 Round Of 16 Playoff Driver Outlook

We have arrived. The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are here.

It took 26 races, 16 different winners (I was right!), an entirely new car and some flared tempers, but the ninth edition of this postseason format is upon us.

The 10-race playoff slate consists of four 1.5-mile venues, the unique Darlington Raceway, two short tracks, the one-mile Phoenix Raceway, one road course and one superspeedway. Plenty of variety to go around and appeal to multiple contenders (and some non-playoff drivers as well, who could play spoiler).

The combined total of 16 drivers across 10 races means I could theoretically go into 160 stats regarding average finishes at each track, but I promise I won’t do that. Instead, let’s look at the first three races and how these drivers might fare during the first round (with some predictions at the end). Each race section includes the three primary playoff drivers to watch with five statistical points and their rankings among active drivers; if two drivers are close in stats, the driver with the better average rank in those statistics gets the nod.

Round of 16: Darlington Raceway, Kansas Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway

Darlington

The “Lady in Black” kicks things off in the postseason as the tour heads north to Darlington, S.C. The first date at the track “Too Tough to Tame” this year brought plenty of drama, from a seemingly-dominant Ross Chastain crashing on the backstretch midway through the race to Joey Logano roughing up William Byron late to secure the victory.

Last year featured the two drivers with average finishes better than 10th — Denny Hamlin (7.8) and Kyle Larson (8.9) — fighting all the way to the checkered flag, Larson’s No. 5 scraping the wall and eventually coming up short as Hamlin scored his fourth victory at the track. The 2021 fall race triumph made Hamlin the leader in track wins among all active drivers.

Kevin Harvick has three wins, while Kyle Busch and Logano each have one. That’s 75% of the playoff field that has yet to win a Cup race at the egg-shaped oval; since the turn of the decade, Hamlin and Harvick each have two victories at Darlington. There’s a number of championship contenders that have average finishes south of 15th, while the rest fall somewhere between 10th and 15th.

Daniel Suarez owns the lowest average finish, a 22.3 through six starts, with teammate Chastain just ahead at 22.2.

With the back-to-back wins for Harvick at Michigan International Speedway and Richmond…