Chevrolet dominated qualifying for today's NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
William Byron won the pole position for the Sunday race (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX), and Chevy claimed eight of the top 10 starting spots. That doesn't even include defending race winner Ross Chastain or Kyle Larson, the odds-on-favorite coming into the weekend.
With such a strong field of bowties at today's EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, it's going to be tough sledding picking among them. Fortunately, there's one driver who's a clear value in my model.
Not only does my model like him, but some other common-sense factors play into this pick as well.
Let's dive in.
NASCAR Odds, Picks for COTA
Alex Bowman has a 5.0 average finish in two starts at COTA. Yes, one of those was the rain-shortened race in 2021. But his other was a second-place finish just last year.
That's significant because not only is it the most recent race at this track, but it's also the only race at the track in the Next Gen car. There are a lot of metrics that stand out for Bowman from that race.
Bowman had the third-fastest average green flag speed and the fifth-best average running position. That average running position comes despite staying out to grab stage points at the end of Stage 1, setting him back in the field for the start of Stage 2.
Turning to this weekend, Bowman was fast in practice as well. While he certainly didn't have the short-run pace that Tyler Reddick had over the first two or three laps of a run, Bowman caught up later in the run.
In fact, Bowman had the lowest standard deviation of any driver in lap times. In other words, he showed incredible consistency.
Now add in his new crew chief, Blake Harris, who captained Michael McDowell to a career year last year, including a 7.6 average finish in the first five road course races of 2022, and we get a match made in heaven.
After adding in his sixth-place starting spot, my model suprisingly makes Bowman the driver most likely to finish as top Chevy, though things are tight between seven of those bowties.
Bet365 and Betfred have this at +1000 while Caesars makes this +800. I'm showing value on both.
The Bet: Alex Bowman Top Chevy +1000 | Bet to: +700
