The NASCAR Cup Series heads to its first road course of the 2025 season as drivers will contest 95 laps on the revamped Circuit of the Americas (COTA) layout.
Practice and qualifying on Saturday should give us a fair bit of information to work with, especially in regard to tire falloff and car adjustments. That's because there were two mini-sessions for each of the two groups, giving teams time to receive feedback and make changes to the car if necessary.
With that, we can see which drivers improved from their first to the second set of tires relative to the field which is where I'm looking at with my biggest edge.
NASCAR at COTA Predictions, Picks
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Odds below as of Saturday evening at 9:15 p.m. ET.
Justin Haley
FanDuel released top-10 lines on Saturday night, and Justin Haley's +2700 odds immediately jumped out to me.
Haley is a very capable road course racer who has three top-10 finishes on road courses in his Cup career. While he didn't have any last year, he was driving for Rick Ware Racing for all the road courses except the Charlotte Roval last year, and his move back to Spire Motorsports should provide him with a step-up in equipment.
That equipment is capable of some fast speeds at COTA, especially as teammate Carson Hocevar is set to start fourth after a fantastic qualifying effort.
Haley's qualifying run didn't go as well, with him firing off 29th, but that's not the end of the world. COTA is a track that can produce chaos and might do so with more frequency given the shorter layout.
Haley also showed plenty of improvement in practice. Using my FLAGS metric, Haley jumped from 31st in FLAGS in the first session to 21st in the second session. If that's how he truly runs, that's a car capable of a midpack run that could find his way inside the top 10 if things get hectic at the end, as they have in the past on the full track layout.
It's not a bet that's likely to win — I have Haley's top-10 odds at just 8.5% — but that's far above the 3.6% implied odds we're getting at 27-1.
The Bet: Justin Haley Top-10 Finish (+2700, FanDuel) | Bet to: +1600
Chase Briscoe
Tyler Reddick put Toyota on the pole with a blistering qualifying lap, while his 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace starts alongside him in second. Reddick should rightly be among the race favorites, as well as the favorite to finish as the top Toyota.
However, things can happen at COTA and should Reddick get caught up in a mess or have a mechanical issue or penalty, there's a whole host of Toyotas that could step in as top Toyota.
My model has Chase Briscoe right among that group of Toyotas that are in a cluster behind Reddick, along with Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs and less so Denny Hamlin and Wallace.
Bell is listed at +400, while Gibbs is listed at +1000, and while Bell and Gibbs should have shorter odds than Briscoe, it should be much closer, especially considering Briscoe was just a fraction of a percentage point behind Bell in pace according to practice FLAGS and ranked one spot ahead of Gibbs.
This is Briscoe's best road course, and I wouldn't be shocked to see him finish as the top Toyota even if Reddick didn't have any major issues given the randomness this track can produce.
The Bet: Chase Briscoe Top Toyota (+1800, Caesars) | Bet to: +1000
