William Byron to lead field for NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix

Kyle Larson. William Byron. Ryan Blaney. Christopher Bell.

Who will become the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Champion? The world will soon find out as the 36-week season-long marathon comes to a fitting close at Phoenix Raceway.

One year ago, Joey Logano drove to his second title in the Valley of the Sun after starting from the pole position. In fact, since Phoenix began hosting the championship in 2020, the driver who qualified first has won both the race and coveted Bill France Cup.

This particular fact should be of great comfort to Byron, 25, who earned the pole over regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr. with a 27.150-second (132.597 mph) lap. In securing the top starting spot for tomorrow, he also earns the preferred No. 1 pit stall, which has been the difference in all three finales at Phoenix.

While Byron didn’t enter as the favorite — likely due to the fact it’s his first time in the final round — maybe he should’ve been. After all, he won at Phoenix earlier this year and has statistically been the best driver all season.

“My team is really going to like this,” Byron said. “It’s going to be fun. This is a great opportunity. I want to be here every year. It’s just really fun to be a part of and we need to take advantage of it.”

Someone who knows firsthand about the importance of qualifying on the pole at Phoenix is Byron’s teammate Larson, who iconically won the 2021 championship courtesy of his team’s execution on the final pit stop of the day in that No. 1 stall.

After dominating in the spring at Phoenix, only to surrender the win to Byron on an overtime restart, Larson was deemed the heavy favorite going into this weekend — recency bias on top of the fact he’s been here before and knows what it takes to win.

Or does he?

“It's a totally different series than it was two years ago,” Larson said. “The cars are different. Restarts are different. Just the style of racing is different.

“There's not really anything I feel like I can take from (my 2021 championship), other than just knowing that we've done it before so we can do it again. But that really doesn't mean anything, either.”

Starting fourth, Larson won’t have the preferred stall. However, he will be starting right behind Byron on the second row as the next-best qualifying Championship 4 contender.

Where things really start to get confusing is how Bell and Blaney fared in their qualifying efforts following a speedy practice session in the evening prior. They enter the main event as the only two who won’t start inside the top-10.

This is an especially puzzling development for Bell, who won four poles this postseason and was fourth-fastest overall in practice.

Although he rolls off 13th, he isn’t fearing the worst. He’s actually the only driver making a second-straight appearance in the final round, which he feels will work in his favor.

“I'm probably more optimistic because I've never won a race from the pole,” Bell said. “Obviously the pit stall is a great advantage. But aside from that, I think the starting position is less of a factor just because it's 312 laps.

“Yesterday in practice my car showed great pace and that leaves me feeling very optimistic. And certainly the whole weekend has gone a lot better than it did 12 months ago.”

Finally, there's the driver who entered this weekend with the most momentum on his side, Blaney. The 29-year-old is coming off his third victory of the season and hopes to bring Team Penske back-to-back titles in the shades of his teammate Logano, who had a very similar playoff run in 2022.

Things appeared to be trending the same direction for Blaney, after he unloaded with the fastest car of the Championship 4 contenders in practice, posting the third-best overall time and owning the top of the speed charts in reference to lap averages.

Unfortunately, speed from practice failed to translate into qualifying, as he has the deepest climb of the championship hopefuls in 15th.

The good thing for Bell and Blaney is, even though they didn’t qualify well, they’re still given the No. 3 and 4 pit stalls, which should provide a bit of a spark, should they not be able to navigate traffic well to start the day.

“Everyone is trying to get that (pit) stall,” Blaney said. “That's an advantage, especially if you have some late-race restarts. Where the box is compared to the timing line is pretty short. You don't have to get up to speed.

“That's a positive thing about being good on Saturdays, you qualify good, get rewarded with a pit stall. But it is like doubling down every time you lose a hand in blackjack, it's got to eventually turn. Hopefully for us tomorrow, it's not a fourth in a row (smiling).”

In addition to the championship battle, there will be a few other things to look out for at Phoenix.

Goodyear is bringing yet another new tire designed to increase grip and tire wear, with the goal being more lap-time fall-off. To help with this, traction compound won’t be applied to the racing surface for the first time since the championship was brought to Phoenix.

What does this mean for the racing? Chase Briscoe, who won at Phoenix in the spring of last year and has a 4th-place average in three starts at the one-mile track, had this contradictory, yet encouraging analysis of what he felt.

“This is the least amount of grip I’ve ever had here in the Next Gen car,” Briscoe said. “I think the cars are going to be out of control in the race — which is good. It’s going to be really exciting.”

While all eyes will be on the Championship 4 drivers, don’t forget about Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola making their final starts before retirement. There are also some big names in search of their first win this season. Most notably, Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace.

With an infinite amount of storylines to follow, an exciting young crop of drivers chasing the championship, and stock cars that’ll be drive on the ragged edge, you won’t want to miss the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race on NBC at 1 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Byron to lead field for NASCAR Cup Series Championship at Phoenix