Defending NASCAR champ Ryan Blaney favored to repeat and win Phoenix race
11/08/2024 01:11 PM
After 35 NASCAR Cup Series races, the whole 2024 season comes down to No. 36, Sunday’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway, where Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and William Byron will race for the title.
The Championship 4 drivers have strong chances to win the Phoenix race, but they don’t necessarily have to in order to be NASCAR’s newest champ. While the Cup champion is sometimes the race winner, the only requirement for claiming the title is having the highest finish of the Championship 4 drivers. For example, Blaney is the defending NASCAR champion, and last season, he finished second at the Phoenix finale but had the highest finish among the title contenders.
Ahead of Sunday’s season finale, Blaney (+175) has the best odds to win the NASCAR Cup Series championship at BetMGM and is also the favorite (+310) to take the race’s checkered flag as of Friday.
On the season, Blaney, the No. 12 Team Penske Ford driver, has three wins, 11 top-5 finishes and has led 555 laps. He’s never won a Cup race at Phoenix, but he won last weekend at Martinsville Speedway at the end of the playoffs’ Round of 8 to lock himself into the Championship 4. If he wins NASCAR’s crown Sunday, he’ll be the first back-to-back Cup champion since Jimmie Johnson’s stretch of five consecutive titles from 2006 to 2010.
NASCAR TROPHIES:From giant lobsters to grandfather clocks, NASCAR's top 15 novelty trophies, ranked
Byron, the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver, follows Blaney with both the second-best odds to win the championship (+275) and the race (+475).
Eyeing his first NASCAR championship, Byron has three wins so far this season — including the season-opening Daytona 500 — with 12 top-5 finishes but just 338 laps led. But he does have one win at Phoenix on his resume from the 2023 spring race where he held off Blaney and Reddick in second and third, respectively. Byron is the only driver who advanced to the Championship 4 based on points in the standings, rather than with a win in the previous playoff round.
Reddick, the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota driver, has the third-best championship odds to win the championship at +325, but he has the lowest shot among the title contenders to win the race itself at +700.
Along with three wins so far this season, Reddick also has 12 top-5 finishes and has led 597 laps on the year. He took the checkered flag at Homestead-Miami Speedway in October during the Round of 8 to automatically advance to the Championship 4, and, like Byron, he’s also racing for his first NASCAR Cup title.
Logano, the No. 22 Team Penske Ford driver, is right there tied with Reddick with the third-best odds to win the championship (+325), but he’s +600 to win the Phoenix race.
One of two active drivers with multiple NASCAR Championships, Logano is already a two-time champ with wins in 2018 and then 2022. He also has three career wins at Phoenix in 2016, 2020 and in 2022 when he won both the race and the title. Logano was the first automatic qualifier out of the Round of 8 when he won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his third win of the 2024 season. He also has six top-5 finishes but has led the fewest total laps this season among the title contenders with just 307.
The NASCAR Cup Series championship race is set for Sunday, November 10 at Phoenix Raceway at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
