NASCAR: Will Matt DiBenedetto burst the playoff bubble with a victory?

Driving for one of the smallest teams in the NASCAR Cup Series, Matt DiBenedetto is one of the hottest drivers in the sport. Can he burst the playoff bubble with a win?

Typically when a NASCAR Cup Series driver enters the 16th race of a 36-race season with a top finish of 12th place and an average finishing position of 24.47, recording a top 10 finish, if that, is more of a realistic goal than getting into the playoffs, especially with a victory.

But the situation of Leavine Family Racing’s Matt DiBenedetto has proven not to be a typical one.

The 27-year-old Grass Valley, California native entered the 2019 season’s 16th race with these statistics, and he entered this race with just four career top 10 finishes, including a career-high sixth place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in April of 2016, in 155 starts.

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DiBenedetto set a new career-high finish of fourth place in this race at Sonoma Raceway, and in the races that have followed, he has proven that this result was no fluke. In fact, driving for one of the smallest teams in the Cup Series, he is suddenly one of the hottest drivers in the field.

The driver of the #95 Toyota went on to finish in eighth place in the rain-shortened race at Daytona International Speedway two races later, and he recorded his second career top five finish with a fifth place finish in the race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway two races later.

His average finish in the last five races is 12.00, and his average finish in the last three races is 9.67. He ranks ninth in the Cup Series in the former, and he trails only Roush Fenway Racing’s Ryan Newman in the latter.

Can DiBenedetto break through with his first career victory over the course of the next six races to burst the playoff bubble and lock himself into the playoffs for the first time in his Cup Series career in his first season driving for Leavine Family Racing?

As far as the drivers who are currently on the outside looking in, sans the two drivers who are only slightly below the playoff cut line (Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Daniel Suarez), there is really no doubt that DiBenedetto has the best chance to burst the playoff bubble and qualify for the playoffs by winning a race despite the fact that he sits in 24th place in the championship standings, 176 points below the cut line.

There are only two other drivers below the playoff cut line with multiple top five finishes this season aside of DiBenedetto, and they are Johnson and Suarez. The five drivers separating these two drivers from DiBenedetto in the championship standings have combined to record just two top five finishes so far this season.

Three of the seven drivers above the cut line without victories are still searching for their second top five finishes of the year, and DiBenedetto has recorded two in the last five races to go along with a solid eighth place finish in that five-race span, a span during which he nearly doubled his career top 10 finish total.

Leavine Family Racing have most definitely benefited from their switch from Chevrolet to Toyota and their new technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, even though they certainly haven’t been as good as Furniture Row Racing were during their three seasons as a Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated team, and their recent progression has been especially notable, which bodes well for DiBenedetto moving forward.

Notably remaining on the regular season schedule are Watkins Glen International and Bristol Motor Speedway. Given Leavine Family Racing’s recently progression, it may not be wise to count DiBenedetto out at any of the other four remaining tracks on the regular season schedule either, but these two particularly stand out.

Toyota drivers took four of the top five positions at the former last season, and that is exactly what they did at Sonoma Raceway this season with DiBenedetto in fourth place. There is no reason to believe that he can’t be a contender to win the season’s second road course race.

When DiBenedetto finished in sixth place at Bristol Motor Speedway back in the 2016 season, he did so driving for BK Racing. This finish was the highest finish in team history, and it was also the only top 16 finish in his first 68 Cup Series races. His next highest finish of 17th happened to also come at the track later that season.

He finished in 12th place, a season-high finish at the time, at the track earlier this season, and given his recent progression, he could be in the mix for a win there when the series returns, as it has always been one of his best tracks.

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Will Matt DiBenedetto win one of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series regular season’s final six races to lock himself into the playoffs and thus burst the playoff bubble by effectively moving the playoff cut line up by one position? Given what he has done recently, this scenario is not as unlikely as it once seemed.

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