DailyFanRacing Newsletter - COTA & Australian GP
What’s up, everyone?! After a couple weeks off, the DailyFanRacing Newsletter is back for a massive FOUR race weekend. Hopefully you like road course racing because we have all three NASCAR Series tackling COTA this weekend plus F1 is back in Australia. Special note: The F1 race is at 12am ET Sunday/9pm PT Saturday.
Before we get into the upcoming racing, I feel like I have to touch on the amazing Bristol action we saw this past weekend. I have never enjoyed a Cup Series race as much as I did that Bristol event. Denny Hamlin and Toyota as a whole have now dominated their second race in a row and they appear to be the class of the Cup Series field early in 2024.
Circuit of The Americas
NASCAR will be in Austin, Texas as all three series will compete at Circuit of the Americas (COTA). It is the first road course race of the season which I am sure will get a lot of NASCAR fans excited (Sarcasm font)… Even though it will be a change-of-pace from he oval action, COTA should continue to bring the excitement based on what we have seen so far from this track.
COTA is a 3.426-mile road course, famously used for F1. The first NASCAR races took place here in 2021, but conditions were much different than what was seen in 2022 & 2023.
Even though we have had a very short history here, NASCAR has still found a way to make things different every time. They raced in a downpour in 2021 so that race holds very little weight in our decision making. Last year’s race here was the first road course race without stage break cautions so that threw everything askew as well.
This year the stage break cautions are back and that will force teams to make the strategy call of pitting early before the stage ends and going for the win or staying out and getting the stage points. I am not a fan of this….
As I mentioned already, all three NASCAR series are at COTA this weekend. The Truck Series and Xfinity Series will have a double header on Saturday and the Cup Series will run on Sunday afternoon.
Quick Facts
Cup Series - Reddick, Bowman, Allmendinger, and Chastain have been top 5 in speed rankings in both COTA races with the NextGen car. Reddick led a race high 41 laps last year which was aided by no stage cautions and a lightning fast car. Ross Chastain led a race high 31 laps in 2022 with stage cautions. This race is 68 laps in length so not a lot of dominator points to be had.
Xfinity Series - AJ Allmendinger has finished 1st, 1st, and 2nd in his 3 COTA Xfinity Starts. He has won the first stage in all three races and he has led 28 & 27 laps out of a possible 46 in the last two races there. We have an incredibly strong Xfintiy Series field this year, can he get his third straight win?
Truck Series - The #38 Front Row truck has won all three Truck Series races at COTA. I feel pretty confident that Layne Riggs will not continue the streak. So which team breaks through and gets the win this week? My early pick…. Ty Majeski +1000 on DK.
As Always, we will have complete coverage of EVERY racing slate at DailyFanRacing.com.
Take advantage of all the elite content coming your way, including:
Driver-by-driver breakdowns; including star ratings for all FOUR series
Driver rankings for all four series
Projections for all four series, loaded into The Solver exclusively for our subs
Premium Cup & F1 podcasts from Ryan Larkin and others…
Plus much more!!
Australian GP - Formula 1
This feels like the true beginning of the 2024 F1 season for me. Australia was the opening race for a very long time and so naturally that feeling will always stick with me.
A couple of years ago the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne underwent a major redesign, with a new layout that delivered a better racing product than in years past. The new layout has provided more opportunities for overtaking and thus better racing. Also, turn 1 is wild here on race starts so be prepared for some chaos to start this race.
I believe this track, much like last race in Saudi Arabia, will suit the Red Bull cars incredibly well. My DFS focus though will be on the battle between Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren. The gap between these three teams is very small and I expect all three to be pretty equal this weekend.
Overall, the Australian Grand Prix promises to be an exciting race, if you can manage to stay up that late! Of course, we will have full slate breakdown and every bit of the race covered at DailyFanRacing.com.
Final Lap
If you haven’t done so already, join our FREE DailyFanRacing Discord, where we are chatting about NASCAR, F1, and MMA everyday.
As usual, for premium members, we will have full driver-by-driver breakdowns, expert rankings, and projections for both races this weekend, in addition to a slate strategy article and podcast for Cup.
Have a great week, and we’ll look forward to you winning with us again this weekend!