Following Kyle Larson‘s dominating victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR heads back west for road racing action at Sonoma Raceway. Let’s recap Larson’s second victory of 2021 and what to expect for NASCAR DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel this Sunday out of the Toyota Save Mart 350.
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Once Larson won the pole on Saturday, inevitably, it felt like the fat lady had already sung. Through four races in the low horsepower package, Larson was already a force to be reckoned with. Besides his won at the somewhat similar Las Vegas, Larson had led the most laps at Atlanta and was coming into Charlotte on a string of three straight runner-up finishes. Placing that driver on the pole was the competitive disadvantage the rest of the field didn’t need on Sunday night.
When the checkered flag had waved, Larson crossed the start-finish line with the win following 327 laps led. The next closest driver, in terms of laps led, was Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott who led 22 laps. Elliott had managed to pass Larson a few times early in the race but wound up losing that lead during pit stops. Even when Elliott held off the fast No. 5 team during pit stops, Larson easily charged past Elliott and reclaimed the lead. The planets were aligned for Larson as it didn’t matter if runs were short or long, his team gave him the speed he needed to win.
Speaking of Larson and Elliott, it was nearly a clean sweep for Hendrick as William Byron and Alex Bowman finished fourth and fifth. The fly in the ointment being Kyle Busch who seems to be the only driver who can challenge Hendrick’s stable for supremacy in the 550 horsepower package.
NASCAR DFS Preview for Toyota Save Mart 350
With Charlotte in NASCAR’s rearview mirror, the Cup Series heads back to Sonoma for more road racing — the third road race of this somewhat young 2021 season.
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For the past few decades, Sonoma was traditionally the first road race on the Cup calendar, as it replaced Riverside in the early 1990s. For those old enough to remember Riverside, it has suffered the fate of every other defunct race track in an area with high-demand real estate — bulldozed for retail and residential.
Sonoma was a missing piece of the COVID-affected 2020 Cup Schedule thanks to restrictions in California. For last season, the only two road courses NASCAR fans witnessed were the rovals at Charlotte and Daytona. However, now with restrictions, NASCAR returns to its most technical road course on the 2021 calendar. Technical in the sense that excelling at Sonoma is more about driving skill, late-braking, and throttle acceleration than what either Roval race or Watkins Glen forces out of drivers.
One could make the case that Circuit of the Americas is very technical, as it was designed for F1. Still, due to the rain, COTA became more about endurance than skill. For that reason, proceed with caution when using performance from COTA to predict how drivers do this weekend.
Regardless, it’s this level of expertise needed to get around Sonoma, that has seemingly kept it off both the Trucks and Xfinity calendar. Xfinity has never been here while the Trucks stopped visiting following 1998’s race. For nearly a quarter of Sunday’s field, the opening laps will be their first time on the track. This includes the rookie class of last season and this season. As Race4ThePrize pointed out earlier this week, perhaps some of these drivers can buy some seats in the ARCA West Series race to get some valuable experience on Saturday. If not, they’ll be leaning a little too hard on the racing simulator this week.
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What to Know for Sonoma
Sonoma, in its full length, contains 12 turns measuring out at 2.52-miles long. Compared to other road races, this length feels short, but with no straightaways like COTA or Watkins Glen, the driver is always on the wheel maneuvering around corners or the 160 feet in elevation changes. A simple picture won’t do justice to Sonoma, so join Kevin Harvick and see just how constantly he is manipulating the gas pedal into the brake, and vice versa, as well as the turns, and elevation changes.
The takeaway this video should give is how little passing actually occurs. Save for driver error or mechanical failure, Sonoma gives drivers very few spots to actually pass one another. A driver has to pick their spots in the few braking zones that exist, like the infamous turn 11 where Denny Hamlin lost the 2016 race to Tony Stewart. There will be drivers who gain place differential but it will take the entirety of 90 laps to do so.
2019 Toyota Save Mart 350
The best way to gauge expectations for Sunday’s race is to review the most recent race at Sonoma, the Toyota Save Mart 350 from 2019. In that race, two “dominators” rose from the pack, the polesitter William Byron and race winner Martin Truex Jr. Byron led the first 21 laps, choosing to stay out for stage points instead of pitting early as the eventual race contenders did. Once Byron pitted following the caution for stage one, he wasn’t heard from again as the lead was split by the Joe Gibbs trio of Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and the aforementioned Truex.
With no real cautions, the 2019 race boiled down to minimal passing and timely pit stops. Truex did both as he led 59 laps and only needed 12 quality passes, in the entire race, to do so. Since the advent of stage breaks, races have traditionally seen race contenders pit early opting to give up stage points in lieu of starting position when the next segment begins. Nonetheless, with so many different winners in the 2021 season, that strategy could get thrown to the wolves. With just four playoff spots remaining for drivers, via points, there’s no guarantee that anyone can make their way to the playoffs via points. With a win carrying so much weight, all contending drivers could opt to pit early and end up grabbing stage points in the process.
DFS Lineup Construction Thoughts for Sonoma
Road Races can become wildly unpredictable. Trying to apply a singular lineup building rule across the board is a fool’s errand. That said, there is one concrete number that will affect lineups, the number of laps. With just 90 laps, two scoring categories get bumped up in prominence — finishing position points and place differential.
There will be dominators but more so in the sense of actually leading the race. The optimal DraftKings and FanDuel lineups for the 2019 Sonoma race both contained a dominator, Truex. Yet when Truex nearly grabs all of those available points, it bumps up his score so much that DFS players have to have him in their rosters. Though, the majority of rosters will be comprised of drivers who score their points via place differential and finishing position. In that same 2019 race, the optimal DraftKings lineup contained four drivers who started worse than 15th while all finished within the top 10.
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