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Chase Elliott (pictured), Joey Logano, Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain make up this year’s Cup Series Championship 4. File Photo by Mike Gentry/UPI | License Photo
Nov. 4 (UPI) — Chase Elliott is favored to win the NASCAR Cup Series Championship and edge fellow Championship 4 drivers Joey Logano, Ross Chastain and Christopher Bell for the Cup Series title Sunday in Avondale, Ariz. The Cup Series Championship will start at 3 p.m. EST Sunday at Phoenix Raceway. The 312-lap race on the 1-mile, tri-oval track will air on NBC. The race’s first two stages will end at lap Nos. 60 and 185. Advertisement
“I feel like we have as good of an opportunity as anybody,” Elliott told reporters Friday. “Our playoffs have been up and down, probably more down than it has been up really for how we ran leading into it.
“But when I sit back and I look at this weekend, the way this format is, the way the Final 4 works, if you’re in, you have a shot, number one. Number two, we haven’t wrote the ending yet, right?”
Championship 4 drivers qualified for their spots throughout the regular season and over the last three months in the Cup Series playoffs. The playoff field started at 16 before it was reduced to a dozen, eight and the Championship 4.
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Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champ, will battle Chastain, Bell and Logano — the 2018 champ — through a 36-car field. The driver who finishes best will be awarded the title.
The average driver age — 29 years, 3 months and 19 days — of this year’s Championship 4 is the youngest in history. Four different race organizations — Team Penske (Logano), Joe Gibbs Racing (Bell), Hendrick Motorsports (Elliott) and Trackhouse Racing (Chastain) — also will be represented in the Championship 4 for the first time since 2018.
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The drivers will qualify for the finale’s starting grid Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on USA Network.
Logano and Logano previously won at Phoenix Raceway, while Chastain and Bell are winless in Avondale.
“Racing for a championship, it’s bigger than any other race,” Logano said Thursday. “You have to learn to handle that pressure. The only way you know how to do that is going through it multiple times.
“I feel like that gives not just myself, but my whole race team a clear advantage going into this race, on top of some of the other things we already know.”
Elliott won a Cup Series-best five races this season. Chastain placed in the Top 5 a Cup Series-best 14 times. Elliott and Chastain each led the Cup Series with 20 Top 10 finishes. Bell and Logano won three times this season. Chastain won twice.
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Bell earned wins in two of the last four playoff races, including last Sunday’s Xfinity 500. Elliott and Logano won one playoff race apiece.
The Cup Series finale prize pool will be $10.5 million.