What The Metrics Had To Say About Daytona
The world of sports data is constantly changing, with more information available to teams, athletes, and even the common fan that can be used to predict performance trends. NASCAR is no different, and the author of this post has built a number of analytical metrics to help give race fans a more advanced view of the action on the track—because, as any driver can attest to, auto racing isn't always a fair sport.
The following numbers – explained in full detail here – are designed to measure driver performance in various aspects of each race, many of which come from NASCAR’s Loop Data. They are ranked by True Driver Rating (TDR), a variation on NASCAR’s Driver Rating, which incorporates factors such as speed, track position, passing, luck, and equipment strength in order to best estimate how well each driver performed during an event.
The metrics from Saturday night's Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway are as shown below:
One thing about modern superspeedway racing in NASCAR is that you always have to take any statistical metric -- whether basic or advanced -- with a grain of salt. Due to the chaotic nature of this type of racing, as well as the fact that drivers often won't compete with full intensity until the closing stages, it can be hard to form takeaways with much substance.
With that said, these races still count, and some drivers still perform better than others. The driver who performed the best on Saturday night may have been the one who flipped over and slammed the inside wall while on his roof during one of several major accidents, that being Josh Berry. Berry had been near the front all night long while the rest of his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates struggled, which was enough to earn him the TDR win with a score of 217.37.
Only Joey Logano had a better average running position than Berry throughout Saturday's race, and he too was taken out in a late wreck that was nearly disastrous. Logano finished with the fourth-best TDR score at 202.43 and also had the highest share of Expected Wins Earned, while sandwiched in between him and Berry are Kyles Larson and Busch. Larson fought back from receiving damage in multiple accidents before ultimately finishing 21st, while Busch avoided the mayhem and came home second.
Busch is notable as he's the only driver who finished in the top five in the race to end up anywhere near the front in the metrics. Race winner Harrison Burton is all the way down in 21st, as while he did a great job taking advantage of circumstances, the fact remains that he was a non-factor until the late wrecks eliminated most of his competition. Just behind him are two additional top-five finishers in Ty Gibbs and Cody Ware, two more beneficiaries of the carnage.
Some more drivers who contended for the win late but crashed out were Justin Haley, Austin Cindric, and Michael McDowell, whose car almost flipped in the wreck just before Berry's. Haley had the race's best pass differential at a whopping +58, in a very impressive showing for his Rick Ware Racing team.
Unsurprisingly, this race continued the very unsettling trend of poor Fairness Rating scores in 2024, coming in at .3356. That's the third-worst score all season long, ahead of only the Daytona 500 (.2544) and Nashville (.2564). With the Southern 500 at Darlington set for next Sunday, followed by the 10-race playoffs, one can only hope to see some normalcy returned to the NASCAR Cup Series.
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