The 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season is scheduled to get underway one week from today. Who will be crowned champion when the season ends in November?
The three-month offseason between the 2018 and 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season is just one week away from being complete, as the 36-race 2019 season is scheduled to get underway next Sunday, February 17 with the 61st annual Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
A total of 15 teams are set to have at least one full-time driver throughout the 2019 season, and between one and four full-time drivers are set to compete for each of these 15 teams.
A total of 32 drivers are set to compete for these 15 teams on a full-time basis. Team Penske’s Joey Logano is set to enter the season as the reigning champion, as he won his first career championship in the 2018 season.
More from NASCAR Cup Series
- NASCAR Cup Series: New team set to compete in 2024
- NASCAR: Surprising name continuously linked to new seat
- NASCAR driver at risk of missing the Daytona 500?
- NASCAR set for rare appearance last seen 13 years ago
- NASCAR team adds third car, names driver for 2024 Daytona 500
Will Logano win his second consecutive championship in the 2019 season, or will another driver be crowned champion?
For Logano to win his second consecutive championship in the 2019 season, he would have to become the first driver to win his second career championship since Jimmie Johnson did so in the 2007 season.
Aside of the seven-time champion Johnson, the only other former champions in this season’s field are all one-time champions, and there are five of them. Kurt Busch won the 2004 championship while Brad Keselowski won the 2012 championship, Kevin Harvick won the 2014 championship, Kyle Busch won the 2015 championship and Martin Truex Jr. won the 2017 championship.
These five drivers would also have to become the first drivers to become two-time champions since Johnson won his second career championship in the 2007 season.
For Logano to win his second consecutive championship in the 2019 season, he would also have to become the first driver to win the championship in consecutive seasons since Johnson won his fifth consecutive championship in the 2010 season.
With these two trends having been active for several seasons each, it makes it hard to bet on a one-time champion, especially Logano, to win the 2019 championship. With Johnson coming off of the worst two seasons of his Cup Series career, it makes it hard to bet on him as well.
As a result, I believe that there will be a new Cup Series champion for the third consecutive season and for the sixth time in the last eight seasons, and I believe that Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott will be that champion.
But I am not just picking him because of these trends.
2019 championship prediction: Chase Elliott
Elliott entered the 2018 season, his third season of full-time competition in the Cup Series, having never earned a victory in his Cup Series career. He had just come off of a season during which he blew several leads late in playoff races alone, and although he entered the season at only 22 years old, critics had already dubbed him “Chokin’ Chase Who Can’t Win A Race”.
With Chevrolet teams and drivers struggling to get a handle on the new Camaro ZL1, it looked like Elliott may complete yet another season without finding victory lane for the first time in his Cup Series career.
Elliott was set to make his 99th career start in the 22nd race on the 36-race 2018 schedule at Watkins Glen International. At this point in time, it had been nearly a half-year since a Chevrolet driver went to victory lane.
Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon won the season opener, the Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway after leading only its final lap in his #3 Chevrolet, and this was Chevrolet’s lone victory of the season through the first 21 races of it.
Elliott broke Chevrolet’s win drought and got the monkey off of his back by winning the race at Watkins Glen International, and he did it by leading 52 of its 90 laps and holding off a late charge by Truex Jr. He went on to win the round of 12 playoff races at Dover International Speedway and Kansas Speedway and finished the season in sixth place in the championship standings having earned the first three victories of his Cup Series career.
But Elliott’s success late in the season, which included him winning three races over the course of the season’s final 15 races, a win total that was tied for the top win total during this span with that of Keselowski, did not come simply because Chevrolet made huge improvements.
In fact, aside of Elliott’s three victories, Dillon’s Daytona 500 victory is still the most recent victory by a Chevrolet driver nearly one full year later.
The 2018 season was Chevrolet’s worst season since the 1982 season. With a full season of running the new Camaro ZL1 cars under their belts, expect the Chevrolet teams and drivers to be much improved in the 2019 season, and expect this improvement to benefit the driver who accounted for 75% of the manufacturer’s victories in the 2018 season more than anybody.
Considering the fact that Elliott finished in fifth place in the championship standings in the 2017 season despite the fact that he did not win a race that season as well as the fact that he spent much of the round of 8 finale at ISM Raceway in the 2018 season above the Championship 4 cut line before he was involved in an accident late in the race, expect this improvement to carry him to his first career Championship 4 appearance at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the 2019 season.
From there, expect the driver who has recorded an average finish of 7.67 in three career starts at Homestead-Miami Speedway, including an average finish of 6.00 in his last two, and has never finished a race in lower than 11th place at the track to secure his first career Cup Series championship.
Will Chase Elliott win his first career NASCAR Cup Series championship in the 2019 season? If not, which driver will win the 2019 title? The 2019 season is scheduled to get underway on Sunday, February 17 with the 61st annual Daytona 500. The full 2019 schedule is located here.