Early Week Driver Rankings for Sonoma

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series travels back to the west coast for the first road course race of the seaon. The racing at Sonoma is always exciting but this year it could be even better. To celebrate 50 years of racing at the course, Sonoma will add “The Carousel” to the already tricky track. This will make the road course 2.52-miles in length and have 12 turns. The Toyota / Save Mart 350 can be seen Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

The MENCS will have two practices Friday. The first is at 3 p.m. ET (FS1) and final practice is at 5:30 p.m. ET (FS1). Qualifying will be Saturday at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

The cars will be back to the 750 HP engines and the aero ducts will be removed. I expect the racing will be the same as it was in 2017 and 2018 at Sonoma since the cars will have a similar aero package to what they had in the past.

My early week pick for the pole is Kyle Larson. The Northern California native does not always race well at his home track but he has been the best in qualifying trim. Larson has won the pole for the last two races at Sonoma and he has never qualified outside the top five.

Each week I use different stats in my model to create the best rankings possible to give you an edge on the completion. This week I used driver rating on road courses, driver rating at Sonoma, average running position at Sonoma, green flag passes at Sonoma (We want drivers who know how to pass on road courses) and momentum over the last four weeks.

Here are the early week driver rankings for Sonoma…

* I will post my final driver rankings Saturday night.

**Stats from Driveraverages.com and NASCAR Media. Career stats from Racing-Reference.Info…

*** Photos from NASCAR Media

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