The Cool Down Lap: Numbers say Hamlin is favorite to win Cup title

The Cool Down Lap: Numbers say Hamlin is favorite to win Cup title


By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

Kevin Harvick is likely to get his wish—but not in the way he would prefer.
The numbers say we’re likely to get a new champion in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series this year. The numbers also say Harvick isn’t the driver most likely to dethrone four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson.
“Somebody else needs to win,” Harvick declared after finishing second to Clint Bowyer in Sunday’s Amp Energy Juice 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Unfortunately for Harvick, that somebody will be Denny Hamlin, who trails Johnson by 14 points with three races left in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Hamlin said last week he hoped Talladega—the most capricious and unpredictable racetrack in the Chase—wouldn’t have a major impact on the standings. He got his wish.
Harvick’s runner-up finish allowed him to trim his deficit to Johnson from 62 to 38 points. After NASCAR sorted out the running order in the wake of a last-lap caution that froze the field, Johnson was credited with a seventh-place run, with Hamlin scored ninth.
For practical purposes, Talladega was a push, and that’s what Hamlin wanted.
“It’s what I asked for,” he said after the race. “I asked for nobody to really get killed (in the points) here this weekend and to let us settle it on the racetrack where our cars and our teams can make a difference and us drivers can make a difference. That’s what we got. We’ve got a tight one, and I’m looking forward to the last three.”
The last three tracks on the schedule are Texas, Phoenix and Homestead. Where Johnson and Hamlin are concerned, Texas is likely to be a push, too. Their stats are comparable. Each has one win. Hamlin finished second and first in his last two starts at the track; Johnson has finished second in three of the past five races there.
At Phoenix, Johnson has an edge, but it’s deceptively small. He has four wins in the desert and hasn’t finished outside the top four there since April 2006 when he finished seventh. Hamlin likewise has shown considerable speed at Phoenix, if not consistent results. Though winless there, Hamlin has five top fives and six top 10s in 10 starts. You also can discount his 30th-place finish in April, Hamlin’s first race after surgery to repair his left knee.
Homestead should prove decisive for Hamlin, the only one of the top three drivers to have won there. Hamlin, who took the checkered flag in the season finale last year, has three top-three finishes in his last four starts at the intermediate track. Johnson has three top fives in nine starts, but in his four championship seasons, Johnson hasn’t been faced with the prospect of having to win at Homestead to win the title.
This year should be different.
Harvick faces an uphill battle. He’s winless with three top fives in 15 starts at Texas. Though he won back to-back races at Phoenix in 2006, he has had only three top 10s since the introduction of NASCAR’s new racecar in 2007, and his average finish in the last seven races there is 15.6.
Harvick’s best chance is to keep the title race close until Homestead, where he has posted seven top 10s in nine starts and has run second and third in the last two races.
The intangibles favor Johnson. His No. 48 team has survived the pressure of four straight championship battles.
The numbers, however, tell a different story and point to Hamlin as the next Cup champion.