June 22, 2025
Shane van Gisbergen's win at Mexico City was a sharp blow to Ryan Preece's chances of making the NASCAR playoffs but he remains alive in the playoff hunt and trails his teammate Chris Buescher by a mere 19 points. When considering Preece seems to be faster than Buescher as often as not, it's definitely still possible for him. Unfortunately for him, Preece qualified exactly one half-second slower than Buescher, resulting in a 13th-place starting position to Buescher's 2nd-place start, meaning Buescher is vastly more likely to earn stage points. Preece has been utterly forgettable at Pocono in previous races with only a single top ten in 2021. Although he technically started on the pole in 2020, he drew that spot and didn't qualify there. Preece has tended to run much better everywhere than he has in previous years, so he certainly has a shot at a top ten, but it's probably too big of a risk to start him for DFS.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 22, 2025
Everyone knew Shane van Gisbergen's season entirely hinged on whether or not he won a road course race in the regular season. After his win at Mexico City last weekend placed him in the playoffs, he's back to his regular schedule of struggling to learn NASCAR's numerous oval circuits. SVG has driven at Pocono once in last year's Xfinity Series race, where he badly struggled, starting 26th and finishing 31st. He qualified a little better this time (23rd), only two spots slower than Trackhouse Racing team leader Ross Chastain. Although he did earn two of his best unrestricted oval results in his last three starts at Charlotte and Michigan, it's hard to expect much better than a top twenty from him and he qualified much too well for that to net him many points for DFS players.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 22, 2025
Michael McDowell qualified slowest of the three Spire Motorsports cars at Pocono as he qualified 28th while Justin Haley was 22nd and Carson Hocevar was 3rd. This suggests he might have some value for DFS Place Differential points given Hocevar's speed. However, it is more likely given his recent form that Hocevar is fast due to his own speed than his team's, so you can't count on McDowell necessarily fighting for a top ten because Hocevar was fast in qualifying. McDowell has been decent here with consistent top 20 running positions in six of his last seven races and a career-best sixth-place finish in the first Next Gen race here in 2022, but he finished eighth on track and only inherited that position after Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch's disqualification. It's unlikely McDowell will gain enough positions to be worthwhile, but he's a better DFS choice than Justin Haley.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 22, 2025
Ty Dillon has consistently kept it clean at Pocono but he's never quite been relevant. Dillon, who starts 27th today, has finished all 12 of his Pocono races and has completed all but nine laps at the triangle. Earlier in his career, he was even better than that with three top twenties in his first four starts and even a 21st place finish for Leavine Family Racing in that span. However, since then he has been extremely consistent in a subpar way finishing between 22nd and 29th in his eight races since. His qualifying position is consistent with that and while his Kaulig Racing cars this year may be faster than the Spire Motorsports cars he had two years ago in his last Pocono start, he has been so consistent that it's hard to envision him even backing into an outlier result due to attrition or strategy, which is what he'd likely need to be a valid DFS option.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 22, 2025
Justin Haley is having a low-key disastrous NASCAR Cup Series season this year, possibly due to his crew chief Ryan Sparks, who also helped make Corey LaJoie look worse than he was in previous years. While Haley doesn't crash as much as LaJoie, he has almost never been relevant this season even though his teammate Carson Hocevar is now showing periodic bursts of top five speed. Haley, who qualified 22nd, did outqualify his other teammate Michael McDowell (who starts 28th), but neither of them were even close to Hocevar, who starts the race from the third position. While Haley did gain positions in all three of the Pocono races he finished, he never finished in the top half of the field and his best finish is only 21st. Since this isn't one of his better tracks and he's now running worse than he did previously, he should likely be avoided for DFS play.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 22, 2025
Cody Ware was one of four drivers who failed to post a time in qualifying for today's race at Pocono. As a result, he will be starting 36th for the race. Because Pocono is one of the longest tracks on the schedule, NASCAR's mandatory stage cautions make it extremely difficult for drivers to be lapped. In the three Pocono races Ware has finished, he has twice finished on the lead lap and has finished no worse than 28th, so it's quite possible he'll gain some positions in the race. However, he is extremely unlikely to gain enough positions to be a worthy starter for DFS, even as a punt option.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June
16,
2025
Chase
Elliott
of
Hendrick
Motorsports
put
together
a
quality
race
on
Sunday's
Viva
Mexico
250
at
Autodromo
Hermanos
Rodriguez
as
he
finished
in
the
third
position.
Elliott
began
the
race
from
12th
and
was
quiet
during
the
first
stage,
making
a
read more...
June
16,
2025
Christopher
Bell
of
Joe
Gibbs
Racing
had
a
strong
performance
during
Sunday's
Viva
Mexico
250
at
Autodromo
Hermanos
Rodriguez
as
he
finished
as
the
runner-up
in
the
event.
Bell
started
the
race
from
the
31st
position
and
quickly
made
up
ground
read more...
June
16,
2025
Joe
Gibbs
Racing
driver
Chase
Briscoe
ended
Sunday's
Viva
Mexico
250
at
Autodromo
Hermanos
Rodriguez
in
the
seventh
position
after
a
wild
topsy-turvy
day.
Briscoe
began
Sunday's
race
from
the
19th
position
and
although
he
made
up
a
few
positions
into
read more...
June 16, 2025
Michael McDowell of Spire Motorsports finished fifth during Sunday's Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Beginning the race from the same position, Michael McDowell remained steady throughout most of the race inside the top five or 10. In the first stage, he placed fourth and earned stage points, and despite his switching between wet and dry tires based on track conditions, he ended the second stage in the fifth position and earned more. In the final stage, McDowell got off-sequence with some of the other drivers on pit and fuel strategy, which shuffled him back outside of the top 10. This led to the No. 71 Chevrolet driver spending the rest of the stage moving through the field. McDowell recovered back into the fifth position for his first top-5 finish of the 2025 season in a points-paying race.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: NASCAR.com
June
16,
2025
Alex
Bowman
delivered
one
of
the
grittiest
performances
of
his
career
on
Sunday
at
Autódromo
Hermanos
Rodríguez
in
Mexico
City,
finishing
fourth
despite
being
very
sore
from
his
crash
a
week
ago
at
Michigan.
Bowman
said
he
felt
more
pain
entering
read more...
June 16, 2025
Tyler Reddick inexplicably had one of the most mediocre road-course races of his career on Sunday at Mexico City despite consistently running well at Circuit of the Americas, the other Formula 1 track on the NASCAR schedule. After starting 22nd, Reddick spent most of the race outside the top 20 before eventually finishing 20th. Reddick was outrun by his teammate Bubba Wallace, who is typically much slower on road courses, for almost the entire race and he posted a worse average running position than his rookie teammate Riley Herbst as well. Reddick's driver rating of 52.9 was the worst of the season to date and his second-worst on a road course ever, behind only Watkins Glen in 2024. Reddick remains 123 points above the playoff cut line since he remains a strong finisher, but this is the slowest he's looked since 2021, which is not a good sign if he has bad luck in the remaining regular-season races.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June 16, 2025
Legacy Motor Club continued to show more pace than they have in 2023 and 2024, and John Hunter Nemechek was the main beneficiary in Sunday's race at Mexico City. After starting 32nd, he finished sixth, which actually matches his best career finish outside drafting tracks. Nemechek wasn't much of a factor in the first two stages, but his crew chief Travis Mack, well-renowned for canny strategies, decided to leave him out of the pits at the end of Stage 2 and pit earlier in Stage 3, which allowed him to pit before a caution came out and ruined the strategy for those who hadn't pitted yet. By staying out on that caution, he jumped up to seventh. He then gained three spots on the restart on Lap 69 and managed to mostly maintain his position from there, although Michael McDowell eventually passed him for fifth on the race's penultimate lap.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
June
16,
2025
Although
Cole
Custer
has
lacked
speed
all
season
since
his
return
to
the
NASCAR
Cup
Series,
he
easily
had
his
best
run
of
the
year
at
Mexico
City
on
Sunday.
Not
only
did
he
finish
eighth
to
earn
his
first
top-10
read more...
June 15, 2025
Kaulig Racing's Ty Dillon will start 28th after qualifying for the Viva Mexico 250 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. This will be Dillon's first top-30 starting position at a road course race since Sonoma back in June 2023. In 13 road course races since 2022, Dillon has three top-20 finishes, all of which were scored in 2022 while driving for Petty GMS Racing. Through 15 races so far this season, Dillon has six top-20 finishes and an average finish of 22.5. In first practice, Dillon ranked 25th in five consecutive lap averages and 23rd in the same statistic during final practice. While it is generally recommended to play drivers at higher price points as they're likely to have better performing cars and a better finish than Dillon, he is a decent and playable choice for DFS lineups if cap flexibility is needed.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
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