Top 20 Countdown: No. 19 Brian Vickers

(Getty Images)

2009 statistics

The countdown

No. 20: Martin Truex Jr. | Career stats

No. 19: Brian Vickers | Career stats

No. 18: Revealed Jan. 13

Editor's note: Yahoo! Sports is counting down the top 20 drivers of the 2010 season. The order was determined by a survey, which asked five NASCAR journalists – Jay Busbee and Jay Hart (Yahoo! Sports); Jenna Fryer (Associated Press); Dustin Long (Landmark Newspapers); and Nate Ryan (USA Today) – to predict the final standings for the 2010 season. The countdown will conclude on Feb. 5 with the unveiling of the No. 1 driver.

2009 finish: 12th

Our 2010 predictions:

• Jay Busbee: 17th
• Jay Hart: 17th
• Jenna Fryer: Not ranked in top 20
• Dustin Long: 15th
• Nate Ryan: 19th

2010 outlook: In the 10 weeks leading up to the 2009 Chase, no driver (outside of Denny Hamlin) was better than Vickers. Then, in the 10-race playoff, no one was worse.

This is the enigma that is Brian Vickers and is why, despite coming off the best season of his career, there's little confidence in him to pull off a repeat.

Vickers has the capability and the team behind him to consistently run in the top 10. But as he showed last September through November, he and his Red Bull mates are prone to a prolonged slump as well.

Which Vickers will show up in 2010 is difficult to pinpoint, but it's fair to say that his success (or futility) hinges on what he does on Fridays. When Vickers qualified well in 2009, he finished well. Nine of his 13 top 10s came when he qualified in the top 10. In contrast, he didn't have a single top-10 qualifying effort in the Chase – a 10-race stretch in which, not coincidentally, he didn't finish in the top 10 once.

No, it wouldn't be a surprise if Vickers made the Chase, but he's still got some proving to do. We have to see it in order to believe it.

What you need to know: Midway through the 2009 season, Vickers signed a contract extension that will reportedly keep him with Red Bull through 2012.