NASCAR odds: Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson are the favorites to win the 2023 Cup Series title
Will NASCAR’s victory lane parity continue in 2023?
Thanks to the introduction of a new car in 2022, 19 drivers won races a season ago. No driver won more than five races and only one playoff driver failed to win a race. Martin Truex Jr. had the eighth-best average finish of any driver but failed to make the 16-driver playoff field because he didn’t get a win.
Chase Elliott’s five wins were the fewest of any driver with the most wins in a season since 2016 and his average finish of 12.5 was the worst of any driver with the best average finish in a season since the turn of the century.
Elliott finished fourth in the points standings in 2022 after he went spinning on a restart during the championship race. 2022 was Elliott’s third consecutive season racing for the title in the final race of the season and oddsmakers like his chances of competing for a title for a fourth straight year.
Elliott enters the 2023 season as the consensus Cup Series title favorite at +550 and just ahead of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson at +600. Elliott won the 2020 Cup Series title, and Larson took home the title the next season before Joey Logano won his second title in 2022.
Despite being the defending champion, Logano isn’t even among the top five favorites for the title. He’s the No. 6 favorite at +1100 to win.
Overall, 12 drivers have odds of +1800 or better to win the Cup Series title while eight more drivers have odds at +6000 or better. The 2023 Cup Series champion is likely to come from the top group of 12, though there are a few sleepers outside of that dozen.
Here’s a look at who should be contending for the 2023 title:
The title contenders
Chase Elliott (+550)
The 2020 champion has won at least two races in each of the past five seasons and should have multiple wins again in 2023. Elliott has scored 20 or more top 10s in each of the last three seasons and led a series-high 857 laps in 2022.
Kyle Larson (+600)
Larson’s title defense was a dud compared to his dominant 2021. After winning 10 races on the way to his first Cup Series title, Larson had three wins and finished seventh in the standings. He was the best qualifier in the Cup Series with an average starting position of eighth, but lost six spots per race.
Denny Hamlin (+800)
Hamlin is the most accomplished Cup Series driver to not have a title, though you probably know that by now. He was fifth in 2022 and had just 16 top-10 finishes despite scoring 10 top fives and had a win taken away through a postrace inspection failure over the summer. He’s our annual title pick and we’re going to keep backing Hamlin to be the champion until he’s no longer a contender.
Ryan Blaney (+1000)
Blaney is the fourth favorite despite a winless season in 2022. Only two drivers had more top fives than Blaney did in 2022 and he led more laps than Larson and Hamlin. Blaney shouldn’t go winless in 2023.
Martin Truex Jr. (+1100)
Truex shouldn’t go winless either. His average finish of 14.9 reflects an ability to avoid bad finishes and not a season of great results. Truex had just four top-five finishes all season. Kurt Busch had five in 20 races. We think the No. 19 team will be a lot better in 2023, even if +1100 may not seem like a great bet.
Joey Logano (+1100)
We’d rather have Logano to win the title at the same odds as Truex. Top-five finishes in each of the first two rounds of the playoffs were enough to get Logano through to the third round and he promptly won at Las Vegas to secure a title shot. Logano then led 187 of 312 laps in the title race to score his second Cup Series title at the age of 32.
William Byron (+1200)
Byron is a bit overvalued at these odds. He had just five top-five finishes and 11 top 10s in 2022 despite finishing sixth in the standings. Byron didn’t finish outside the top 16 in any of the 10 playoff races, though his lack of playoff points accrued during the regular season hindered his title chances.
Ross Chastain (+1200)
Chastain provided NASCAR with its moment of the season at Martinsville and a desperately-needed storyline of a driver becoming a title contender after starting his Cup career driving for backmarker teams. Chastain had the most top-five finishes (15) of any driver in 2022 and also had the most top 10s. Is it harder to climb to the top or stay at the top? Chastain and his team will find out this season.
Kyle Busch (+1200)
If Busch’s No. 8 team has the speed that it showed with Tyler Reddick at the wheel in 2022 then these odds feel just right. Busch had just one win in 2022 as things went south at Joe Gibbs Racing. Reddick won three times a season ago. We’ll be very surprised if Busch doesn’t have multiple wins.
Christopher Bell (+1200)
Bell finished third in 2022 and had three wins as he was JGR’s only final four representative. You could have gotten great odds on Bell being the team’s top driver ahead of the season. He now finds himself as the No. 3 favorite on his own team, but we won’t be shocked at all if he ends up as the team’s No.1 or No. 2 driver at the end of the season again.
Tyler Reddick (+1500)
Reddick replaces Kurt Busch at 23XI Racing and will be expected to win races right away. The team showed speed in its first season, especially at intermediate tracks. Reddick has also proven to be one of the better road course racers in the Cup Series and should finish higher than 14th in the standings this season.
Kevin Harvick (+1800)
We wouldn’t bet on Harvick winning the Cup Series title in his final season but we also wouldn’t be totally shocked if it happened either. He had two wins a season ago and an average finish of 14.3. He wasn’t a title contender because of an awful start to the postseason.
The sleepers
Alex Bowman (+3000)
Bowman missed five races during the playoffs because of a concussion suffered at Texas. He made the playoffs with a win in the third race of the season and was in the top 12 in points all season long before the playoffs. Bowman has seven wins over the last four seasons despite just 25 top-five finishes. It’s an impressive win to top-five ratio.
Chase Briscoe (+4000)
Briscoe finished ninth in the standings a season ago and may be the most undervalued driver in the betting market. He had just six top fives and 10 top 10s and went through a significant summer slump. But he had six top 10 finishes over the final seven races of the season and is entering just his third Cup Series season.
Bubba Wallace (+4000)
Wallace got the second win of his career at Kansas in the fall a season ago. It came a little too late to make the playoffs, but Wallace should be a playoff driver in 2023 if the speed he and 23XI Racing showed at intermediate tracks a season ago continues.
The long shots
Ryan Preece (+5000)
Preece gets his second shot at a full-time Cup Series ride as he replaces Cole Custer at Stewart-Haas Racing. You can do worse betting on a long-shot title contender.
Daniel Suarez (+5000)
Suarez got the first win of his career in 2022 and finished 10th in the standings. Like with Chastain, we’ll find out in 2023 if Trackhouse will slide back a little bit or continue to be one of the better teams in the Cup Series.
Austin Cindric (+5000)
The surprise Daytona 500 champion finished 12th in his first full season in 2022. He’ll be one of the favorites ahead of every road course race.
Ty Gibbs (+6000)
Gibbs replaces Kyle Busch at his grandfather’s team and we’d advise you to bet on someone else. Gibbs had just one top-10 finish in 15 Cup Series races a season ago.
Brad Keselowski (+6000)
The 2012 Cup Series champion had a rough season in 2022. Keselowski finished 24th in the standings in his first year at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing and had just one top-five finish.
