DailyFanRacing Newsletter - Daytona

What’s up, everyone?! It’s Dustin Maybin (@CUPharmDFS) back again with your weekly DailyFanRacing newsletter. Daytona week is here, and more importantly, it’s the last week of the NASCAR regular season.

Let’s first take a look at this weekend’s schedule of events:

Friday, August 25th

• 6:30 am ET - F1 Practice One

• 10:00 am ET - F1 Practice Two

• 3:00 pm ET - Xfinity Series Qualifying

• 5:05 pm ET - Cup Series Qualifying

• 7:30 pm ET - Xfinity: Wawa 250 powered by Coca-Cola 

Saturday, August 26th

• 5:30 am ET - F1 Practice Three

• 9:00 am ET - F1 Qualifying

• 2:00 pm ET - Craftsman Truck Series Practice

• 7:00 pm ET - Cup: Coke Zero Sugar 400

Sunday, August 27th

• 9:00 am ET - F1: Heineken Dutch Grand Prix

• 11:30 am ET - Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying

• 4:00 pm ET - Trucks: Clean Harbors 175

Talk about a packed weekend! All four series are back in action this week. As you can see, the Xfinity and Truck Series will have quick turnarounds between qualifying and the race, while F1 and Cup qualify the day prior to their races. 

Across the four series, three completely different tracks will be in use. The Truck Series will be at Milwaukee, while Xfinity and Cup are in Daytona and F1 is in the Netherlands. A short track, a superspeedway, and a road course make for a great viewing variety but also present more data to analyze.

Clean Harbors 175 (Truck Series)

For the first time since 2009, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will be returning to the Milwaukee Mile. Aptly named, Milwaukee is a 1.015-mile asphalt oval with 9° banking in the turns, meaning that for analysis purposes, we consider it a short, flat track. Fortunately, the past two races and 3 of the last 6 have been on this track type. 

There has been an extended break for the series, so while it’s unlikely that major equipment upgrades have been done during the time off, it’s certainly possible. Also, since the track is a mile long, compared to under ¾ like Richmond and IRP, results may also differ. Being a new track on the schedule, teams will have a longer practice session than usual this week, and that data will be crucial to constructing lineups this week.

Each of the five optimal lineups at this track type in 2023 have featured at least one driver starting in the top 5 and also at least one driver starting 25th or worse. The difficult passing and ability for the leader to lap cars quickly does make it harder for backmarkers to pay off though, so be wary of chasing place differential. Be sure to check out Larkin’s full slate breakdown on Sunday after qualifying for more information!

Daytona #2 (Xfinity, Cup)

Daytona is the site for this year’s Cup Series regular season finale, and several top drivers are still vying for a playoff spot. The desperation and high pressure will likely lead to some very exciting racing, but the aggression also brings with it a strong chance for mayhem. Add in the fact that the summer Daytona races are typically more chaotic than in February, and you’ve got a recipe for complete carnage.

Among the drivers still trying to get into the playoffs are Bubba Wallace, Daniel Suarez, AJ Allmendinger, Alex Bowman, and former Cup Champion Chase Elliott. Wallace can lock himself in with a solid day as long as the winner has already won a race in 2023. For the others, winning the race is likely their only chance of advancing. Expect their teammates to do whatever possible to help them achieve that goal.

Though not the finale, the Xfinity Series regular season is dwindling down as well with just three races remaining, so we could see similar issues. While stacking the back can still be profitable, it does have its limitations, especially in the Xfinity Series where there is a bigger performance discrepancy between the elite and low budget teams. 

Given the carnage that could occur at any moment on this track type, leaving salary on the table could be another profitable strategy, as could rostering drivers that would normally be afterthoughts. Be comfortable with making uncomfortable roster decisions. Regardless, qualifying position and narratives will largely dictate lineup construction this week, so check out my breakdown and Luke’s strategy articles this weekend after qualifying for more!

Dutch GP

F1 is back!!! To say we are excited is a massive understatement. The long summer break is over and the racing action returns in Zandvoort. Zandvoort is one of the shortest tracks on the F1 calendar and presents some fantastic and unique aspects, including two banked corners and one of the most beautiful backdrops for a race track in the entire world.

Last year’s race was an eventful one with Verstappen taking the win. It was extremely close in the middle stages of the race with Hamilton potentially on the winning strategy but a very poor decision by Alpha Tauri to send Tsunoda back on track with a broken car resulted in the strategy being flipped in Verstappen’s favor when the safety car came out.

It will be very interesting to see if Mercedes, McLaren, or potentially Ferrari can take the fight to Red Bull this week. This style of high downforce, low speed track is definitely their weakest. If they are going to be vulnerable to an upset it will be races like the Dutch GP.

As always, we will have complete coverage at DailyFanRacing.com of all four races this weekend so be sure to check us out!!!

Final Lap

We will have much more lineup construction tidbits and advice in our race breakdowns, so join DailyFanRacing today to take advantage of the most comprehensive fantasy NASCAR coverage in the industry!

If you haven’t done so already, join our FREE DailyFanRacing Discord, where we are chatting about NASCAR and F1 every day.

As usual, for premium members, we will have full driver-by-driver breakdowns, expert rankings, and projections for ALL FOUR DFS slates this weekend, in addition to a slate strategy article and podcast for Cup and F1.

Have a great week, and we’ll look forward to you winning with us again this weekend!