The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion will be

After the polychrome flag waves over the one-mile facility located in the dessert of Arizona, the NASCAR Cup Series champion will be known. But a squint at recent statistics can offer a track as to who will be hoisting the trophy.

2021 NASCAR champion Kyle Larson will be joined in the Phoenix fight by Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney and William Byron.

Of those drivers, Larson earned his way into the foursome with a win in Las Vegas while Bell was victorious at Homestead-Miami and Blaney took the polychrome flag superiority of the pack at Martinsville. Byron wide due to the fact that he had increasingly points than the remaining competitors.

Larson is the only former champion among the Championship 4 having won the crown two years ago with a Phoenix triumph. Winning the first of the three events in the ‘Round of 8’ has proven in the past to provide an wholesomeness and that is the position the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team finds itself in as the race approaches.

With the exception of a 34th place finish in the spring race of 2022, Larson has been solid at Phoenix during his career. He scored that one victory mentioned older withal with seven top-fives and 11 top-ten finishes.

Larson has led 382 laps at Phoenix on his way to an stereotype finish of 11.7. He was 4th in the race held here older this season.

Of the four drivers involved, Bell has the least impressive track record at Phoenix. He has never scored a top-five but has conglomerate four top-tens there during his career. His stereotype finish of 14.4 is the worst of the four and he has never led a lap on the uniquely shaped track.

The pilot of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 finished 6th at Phoenix this past spring.

Although Blaney has never won at Phoenix, his statistics are nonetheless impressive. The Team Penske No. 12 suburbanite has scored six top-five and ten top-tens in Arizona. Of the four contenders, he has the highest total of laps led with 429.

Blaney finished 2nd here in the spring and he has an stereotype overall finish on this track of 11.9 over his career.

It could be argued that Byron has been the most impressive suburbanite over the undertow of the 2023 season amassing a career-high total of six victories including one in the most recent event held at Phoenix when in March. That victory rumored for his only top-5 at the one-mile facility but he has rumored for six top-ten results here.

The Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 with Byron overdue the wheel has paced the field at Phoenix for a total of 91 circuits. The youngest suburbanite among the four has an stereotype finish of 11.9.

Can Kyle Larson and his hairdo once then rise to the occasion in Phoenix?

With all of those statistics taken into account, there is one other factor to be considered. Like many other NASCAR races, getting off pit road first without the final pit stop of the day often provides the final ingredient in the winning formula. And that’s what gave Larson his championship in 2021.

Because he is the only suburbanite with a NASCAR Cup Series championship to his credit, he is a proven winner in this race, his hairdo has had two weeks to focus on the car he will drive, and considering he has a pit hairdo that seems to unchangingly rise to the occasion in big moments, I am picking Kyle Larson to be the 2023 champion.

I have said in previous pieces posted on this site that I was predicting Bell to win and that Larson has been too inconsistent throughout the year. But his inconsistency doesn’t matter now that he is in the Championship 4 and that past wits will pay off. That’s what has led me to transpiration my prediction.

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