NASCAR: Looking to the past to predict the 2021 champion

What can recent champions and their respective seasons tell us about who might win the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship?

With the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series regular season now behind us, attention has shifted to the race to the championship, which will begin at Darlington Raceway in this Sunday’s running of the Cook Out Southern 500.

A total of 16 drivers will duke it out over 10 races and attempt to avoid elimination through three rounds until four drivers are left to battle for the championship at Phoenix Raceway in early November.

The battle for the championship started at Daytona International Speedway, and in the 25 races that followed, upsets and unforgettable moments shaped the season. Based on the wins and thrills of this past season, fans and experts alike have already begun to debate who will reign victorious at season’s end.

What if we could look even further back than 2021, though, to predict this year’s champion? That’s exactly what we’ll be doing in this article.

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To predict the 2021 champion, data was compiled from the regular seasons for the last seven champions, who all won their championships in the current elimination-style playoff format.

Six different drivers have won the championship in the elimination-style playoff format: Kevin Harvick (2014), Kyle Busch (2015 and 2019), Jimmie Johnson (2016), Martin Truex Jr. (2017), Joey Logano (2018) and Chase Elliott (2020).

Five different organizations have won the championship in this era: Stewart-Haas Racing (2014), Joe Gibbs Racing (2015 and 2019), Hendrick Motorsports (2016 and  2020), Furniture Row Racing (2017) and Team Penske (2018).

All three OEMs have won a title in the modern version of the postseason. Chevrolet (2014, 2016 and 2020) and Toyota (2015, 2017 and 2019) have claimed the championship three times each while Ford has only captured the title once (2018).

Toyota has only won it in odd-numbered years while Chevrolet has only won in even-numbered years. None of the three OEMs have captured back-to-back titles.

The average age of the champion over the last seven years (when the championship was clinched) is 33.14 years old.

Only on one occasion did the champion not race in all 26 regular season races. That occurred in 2015, when Kyle Busch missed the first 11 races of the regular season after being sidelined due to a vicious crash in the Xfinity Series season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway.

The champion has ended the regular season with either one, two or four wins in each of the past seven years. In that time, only one champion has scored one win in the regular season: Joey Logano. Three champions ended the regular season with two wins: Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott.

The champion ended the regular season with four wins three times: Kyle Busch did it twice and Martin Truex Jr. did it as well.

Chevrolet has only won the championship in years where the eventual champion ended the regular season with two wins, while Toyota has only won the championship in years where the eventual champion ended the regular season with four wins.

Six of the last seven champions ended the regular season inside the top nine in points. Kyle Busch is the only driver to end the regular season worse than ninth place in points and still win the championship. In 2015, he ended the regular season in 27th.

The average points position of the champion at the end of the regular season is ninth place, including Busch’s 27th place finish in 2015 regular season standings. When you remove Busch’s 2015 stats, the average champion’s points position at the end of the regular season is fifth.

The regular season champion has gone on to win the championship twice. Since stage points were introduced in 2017, the eventual champion has ended the regular season with between 14 and 53 playoff points. Martin Truex Jr. earned 53 playoff points in the 2017 regular season, Joey Logano earned 14 in 2018, Kyle Busch earned 45 in 2019 and Chase Elliott earned 20 last year.

In the three years with the elimination-style playoffs prior to the existence of stage points, playoff points (called bonus points in those years) were awarded solely for race wins. Each of the three champions from those years began the playoffs with either six or 12 playoff points (two or four race wins), which would be equivalent to 10 or 20 playoff points under the current points system.

In the four years during which stage racing has been around, the champion has ended the regular season with between three and 18 stage wins. Martin Truex Jr. ended the 2017 regular season with 18 stage wins, Joey Logano ended the 2018 regular season with three, Kyle Busch ended the 2019 regular season with 10 and Chase Elliott ended the 2020 regular season with six.

The eventual champion has ended the regular season with an average finish between 8.2 and 15.3, between six and 13 top five finishes and between nine and 21 top 10 finishes in each of the last seven seasons. On average, the eventual champion has ended the regular season with 8 top five finishes and 14 top 10 finishes.

The eventual champion has ended the regular season with between one and five DNFs. Together, the last seven champions averaged just two DNFs during the regular season.

During the regular season, the eventual champion has led between 266 and 1,646 laps. The last seven champions have averaged 810 laps led total during the regular season. The eventual champion has been seeded between first and seventh place in the playoffs each year over the last seven years.

Based on the statistics presented in this article, Beyond the Flag has calculated that the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be…

RYAN BLANEY

Having won the last two races, this young gun is heating up at just the right time to contend for his first championship. When evaluating the 16 playoff drivers’ seasons, Blaney’s statistics fall the most in line with the past seven champions and their regular seasons.

Three of his statistics — eight top five finishes, 14 top 10 finishes and two DNFs — are identical to the past seven champions’ regular seasons when averaged together. In addition, Blaney has an 11.8 average finish, the second closest in this category to that of the past seven champions.

WynnBET currently lists Blaney as the ninth favorite to win this year’s championship at +1400.

Make your pick now on WynnBET.

Blaney’s last six races have resulted in five top five finishes, including a runner-up finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and wins at Michigan International Speedway and Daytona International Speedway.

In those recent races, Blaney hasn’t had a dominant car, but he has been able to adjust his driving style to take care of the car, and his pit crew has helped to improve his cars during the races to help him get to the front, something that Jimmie Johnson and his team were well known for doing during his reign as Cup Series champion.