NASCAR Cup Series: 5 playoff drivers who could be in trouble
By Asher Fair
NASCAR playoff drivers in trouble: No. 3 – Austin Cindric
Team Penske’s Austin Cindric will always have the 2022 Daytona 500 win to his name, but since then, things have been anything but smooth for the driver of the No. 2 Ford.
The start of the 2023 season has been particularly rough, as he has yet to secure a top five finish and has only placed inside the top 10 on two occasions. He hasn’t finished higher than 19th place in more than a month, and four of his last five results are finishes of 26th or worse.
In one way, it’s kind of surprising that he is only 26 points below the cut line, but that cut line will likely move with more winners, meaning that his best chance to get back to the postseason is by winning.
Cindric is widely known for his road course racing prowess, and one of his season-best sixth place finishes did come at Circuit of the Americas in March. He also finished in fifth at Sonoma Raceway and second at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course as a rookie last year, so he could very well win his way into the postseason in an upcoming road course race.
But road course races in the Next Gen era have been almost as much of a crapshoot as superspeedway races, and the best road course drivers don’t always come out on top.
The good thing for Cindric is that he added two third place finishes in superspeedway races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Daytona International Speedway late last regular season, so not all hope is lost if he can’t earn his first Cup Series road course win.