Here's what's at stake and what you need to know about Sunday's Cup race in Indy
A frequent topic of conversation throughout Indianapolis Motor Speedway garage this weekend has centered around whether the NASCAR Cup Series should be competing on the oval or the road course at the iconic facility.
While opinions have varied depending on who you ask, the fact of the matter remains that on Sunday, the 36-driver field will navigate the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course as the series gets one race closer to determining the playoff grid.
The plethora of different winners (14 this season) has given even more of an emphasis to winning as opposed to points racing as the series enters the final stretch of the regular season, with just five races to go before the playoff grid is finalized.
Despite being third and fifth, respectively, in the point standings, Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. are winless and risk missing the playoffs completely if they fail to visit victory lane and two drivers without a win take the checkered flag over the course of the next five events.
Blaney qualified sixth for Sunday’s race in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford and finished runner-up to A.J. Allmendinger in the Cup Series’ first foray on the IMS road course last season. Blaney also has a win at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval on his resume and has the fourth-best average finish on the three road courses the Cup Series has visited thus far in 2022 (7.6).
Meanwhile, Truex qualified back in the 25th position as the Toyota camp has struggled on road courses this season. Truex has four road course victories in his career, with the last coming at Sonoma in 2016. The New Jersey native finished 15th on the IMS Road Course last season.
While Ford Performance took six of the top-10 positions in qualifying, it could very well be Team Chevy in victory lane at IMS. Chevrolet has won nine consecutive Cup Series road course races, dating back to Chase Elliott’s win at Circuit of The Americas in May 2021. In that timespan, six drivers from four different Chevrolet teams have contributed to those wins.
Speaking of Elliott, he’s currently the hottest driver in the series, with an average finishing position of 1.4 over the last five races (three wins and two second-place results). The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet currently leads the regular season standings by 105 points over Ross Chastain and has seven wins on road courses in his career, the most of any active driver.
Tyler Reddick drove his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet to victory at Road America four weeks ago - the most recent road course the Cup Series visited – and will lead the field to green at IMS after posting a lap three-tenths quicker than Austin Cindric in Saturday’s qualifying session to earn the second pole position of his career.
Reddick is one of five first-time winners this season at the Cup level, a series record. The three road course races thus far in 2022 have all yielded three of those first-time winners: Ross Chastain (Circuit of the Americas), Daniel Suarez (Sonoma Raceway) and Reddick (Road America).
Kevin Harvick is currently the first driver outside looking in at the playoffs and just two of his 58 career victories have come on road courses (one in 2006 and one in 2017). In jeopardy is Harvick’s streak of 12 consecutive seasons with a playoff appearance, the longest among active drivers.
Of the drivers seeking their first win of 2022, three finished inside the top-10 last year at the IMS Road Course: Blaney (P2), Erik Jones (P7) and Justin Haley (P8).
Coverage of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard begins on NBC at 2 p.m. ET.