NASCAR betting: Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson are the drivers to beat at COTA
NASCAR’s new Cup Series car gets another test this weekend.
Sunday’s race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, is the first road-course race for the car (3:30 p.m. ET, Fox). The car was designed by NASCAR to drive better at road courses like COTA and tracks that include both left and right turns make up six of the 36 points races on the Cup Series schedule.
The car is supposed to have better braking and handling through the corners. Lap times will be faster and drivers are going to have to adapt their road-course driving styles.
And guess what? Chase Elliott is still the favorite to win Sunday’s race. Elliott (+300) is the defending champion at COTA and has won four of the last eight road course races over 2020 and 2021. Overall, seven of Elliott’s 13 wins have come at road courses.
Elliott’s teammate, Kyle Larson, is the No. 2 favorite. The defending Cup Series champion is at +400 to win and won three of the six road courses on the 2021 schedule. Larson also finished second to Elliott at COTA in May of 2021.
Larson and Elliott deserve their perches atop the odds lost. They’re the deserved favorites. Just don’t try to look at last year’s box score and draw any other conclusions from it. In addition to a different car, Sunday’s race will also be contested in totally different weather conditions. Elliott won a rain-plagued and rain-shortened race in 2021. The forecast for the weekend is for 80s and sunshine.
Here’s what you need to know to bet the race. All odds are from BetMGM.
The favorites
Chase Elliott (+300)
Kyle Larson (+400)
Kyle Busch (+900)
Martin Truex Jr. (+900)
Denny Hamlin (+1400)
Crazily enough, Busch hasn’t won at a road course since he won at Sonoma in 2015 on the way to his first title. He’s incredibly solid at road courses, however. That’s why he’s the No. 3 favorite. Martin Truex Jr. was in a huge wreck a season ago at COTA that was caused because of all the spray on the backstretch. Truex has three wins and six top 10s at Sonoma, the longtime NASCAR road course that has the most crossover with COTA. Hamlin was in contention to win at the Indianapolis road course a year ago until the final lap and has solid stats at all of NASCAR’s road courses.
Good mid-tier value
Austin Cindric (+1600)
Tyler Reddick (+2500)
The 2022 Daytona 500 champion has 13 Xfinity Series wins and five of those have come at road courses. As a rookie, Cindric isn’t going to have to unlearn a bunch about the old Cup Series car at road courses. Reddick qualified on the pole for last year’s COTA race and stayed in the top 10 through all the chaos.
Don’t bet this driver
Brad Keselowski (+8000)
Keselowski hasn’t been great at road courses lately and his Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing team is still getting things figured out. The odds may be tempting, but they’re this high for a reason.
Looking for a long shot?
Harrison Burton (+50000)
Burton has struggled in his rookie Cup Series season. He’s not going to win on Sunday. But we have to pick someone with astronomical odds and he’s at least shown competency on road courses in his Xfinity Series career.
