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The 2022 Cup Series season officially begins on Sunday with the Daytona 500. The race was moved back a weekend this year because of NFL’s extra week during the regular season. The 500 starts a stretch of 37 races in 38 weeks for NASCAR’s top level before the final race of the season at Phoenix on Nov. 6. Here’s what you need to know to be ready to watch the Great American Race.
2022 Daytona 500
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Sunday, Feb. 20
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2:30 p.m. ET, Fox
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Green flag: 3:06 p.m.
The favorites
Denny Hamlin has won three of the last six Daytona 500s and is +800 at BetMGM to get his fourth victory. A fourth win would tie him with Cale Yarborough for second-most Daytona 500 wins all time behind Richard Petty’s seven.
Defending 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson is at +1000 to win the race along with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott. Larson will start Sunday’s race on the pole after posting the fastest qualifying speed on Wednesday night. Neither Elliott nor Larson have won the Daytona 500.
Hamlin is the only multi-time Daytona 500 winner in the field. With the retirements of drivers like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth over the last seven seasons, only Michael McDowell (2021), Austin Dillon (2018), Kurt Busch (2017), Joey Logano (2015) and Kevin Harvick (2007) are in the 40-driver field alongside Hamlin as Daytona 500 champions.
Will the race be decided on the last lap again?
Four of the last five Daytona 500s have been won with a last-lap pass. And the winner of three of those four hadn’t led the race until the final lap.
McDowell won a year ago after Brad Keselowski collided with Logano while making a pass for the lead. Hamlin — who led 79 laps — won in 2020 after Ryan Newman’s terrifying crash off Ryan Blaney’s bumper while heading to the checkered flag. Dillon crashed Aric Almirola into the wall on the final lap in 2018 and Busch passed Blaney for the win on the last lap in 2017.
The new car
Sunday’s race is the first points race for NASCAR’s brand new “next-gen” Cup Series car. The car is a drastic difference from previous iterations of Cup Series cars both for drivers and teams alike.
For drivers, the brakes are bigger and much more powerful and the steering system is completely different. The longtime four-speed transmission is also no more as the new car has six gears. The car is designed to be more adaptable on various track types and handle better on road courses. Six of the 36 points races on the Cup Series schedule are now on tracks that feature left and right turns.
The cars are even more different for the teams. For years, teams have developed and built their own parts and pieces in the never-ending search to find speed. Now, the main components of the new car are built and supplied by approved vendors. Teams purchase those parts and pieces from the vendor and assemble the cars themselves.
The lack of parts development means there are fewer places where teams can try to find speed advantages over each other. And that’s one of the goals of the new car. NASCAR hopes the new car will help teams save money over the course of future seasons while also leading to more parity throughout the field.
Yes, the numbers are moved forward
One of the biggest visual changes casual fans will notice when tuning into Sunday’s race is the new placement of the numbers on the sides of the cars. In an effort to give team sponsors more real estate on the cars, teams have shifted the numbers forward toward the front wheels of the car.
It looks awkward at first, especially if you’ve been watching racing for years. NASCAR certainly hopes fans will quickly get used to the new number placement and teams will be able to charge more money for the sponsorships they sell on their cars.
A lot is being pinned on the car
NASCAR president Steve Phelps has said on multiple occasions that the introduction of the new car is a “panacea” for the series. NASCAR executives love to be hyperbolic, but saying this car is the solution for all that afflicts America’s largest auto racing series is a new level of hyperbole.
Thanks to supply chain issues and the limited number of vendors able to supply parts to teams, many teams entered the Daytona 500 with far fewer cars and parts than they’re used to having. Thursday’s qualifying races were largely timid as teams didn’t want their drivers to crash one of the few cars currently assembled.
The inventory issues should ultimately be solved as the season goes on and teams get more cars built. Though it remains to be seen how the new car will affect the racing that fans see on a weekly basis.
It’s a bold move to pin a resurgence of NASCAR on a car in a country where car culture is slowly fading away. It reasons that any NASCAR bounceback will be borne out of rivalries and the personalities of the drivers who drive the cars, and not the equipment they’re driving. But if the new car allows drivers to race each other more easily and make driving talent more important than ever, it could at least be a step toward that panacea that Phelps craves.
Familiar faces in new places
The biggest offseason driver move is Keselowski’s switch from Team Penske to Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. He went to the former Roush Fenway team as part of a deal that gave him a minority stake in the team.
Keselowski’s run with RFK got off to a good start on Thursday night with a win in the first duel qualifying race. The team’s other driver, Chris Buescher, then won the second race after an ill-timed block by Logano on the final lap sent the driver of the No. 22 car into the wall from the lead.
Austin Cindric, the 2020 Xfinity Series champion, is in Keselowski’s old No. 2 car at Team Penske.
Kurt Busch, the 2004 champion, is in the No. 45 car for 23XI Racing. Busch is a teammate to Bubba Wallace for the team owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin. Busch moved to 23XI after Chip Ganassi Racing was sold to Trackhouse Racing at the end of the 2021 season.
Daytona 500 starting lineup
1. Kyle Larson
2. Alex Bowman
3. Brad Keselowski
4. Chris Buescher
5. Austin Cindric
6. Michael McDowell
7. Ryan Blaney
8. Harrison Burton
9. Chase Briscoe
10. Kyle Busch
11. Chase Elliott
12. Christopher Bell
13. Erik Jones
14. Martin Truex Jr.
15. Tyler Reddick
16. Bubba Wallace
17. Kurt Busch
18. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
19. Ross Chastain
20. Joey Logano
21. Daniel Suarez
22. Kevin Harvick
23. William Byron
24. Corey LaJoie
25. Justin Haley
26. Ty Dillon
27. Landon Cassill
28. Greg Biffle
29. Todd Gilliland
30. Denny Hamlin
31. Cole Custer
32. Cody Ware
33. Daniel Hemric
34. David Rogan
35. Kaz Grala
36. Austin Dillon
37. BJ McLeod
38. Aric Almirola
39. Noah Gragson
40. Jacques Villeneuve