🏁 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Driver Rankings 🚗
Tracking the top drivers in the sport, all season long.
Throughout the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, I’ll be updating the following table to keep tabs on the fastest drivers in the sport, week in and week out. For more information about how it works, scroll down. If you just want the TL:DR? Every driver is assigned points based on how they finish, and I track their average points per race (relative to average) with weight also given to previous seasons. I also use a version of this (also weighted by track similarity) to predict performance at this week’s upcoming track.
🏁 2024 NASCAR Cup Series driver ratings 🚗
How it works
The basis of this system is my Adjusted Points index (Pts+) metric. Adjusted Points gives credit to drivers for finishing in each position, based on the following curve:
The average of those points per race is then scaled relative to the Cup Series norm, so that an average driver is always 100.
The driver rankings then look at this across multiple seasons, in the manner of the classic “Marcel” projection system. (I used a version of this for my 2024 NASCAR season preview as well.) The following weights are applied to a driver’s total races and Pts+ from each season:
2024 season weight: 6.0
2023 season weight: 2.4
2022 season weight: 1.2
2021 season weight: 0.4
The ratings are “padded” with about 23 races of a 53.6 Pts+ index as well, so that the following formula is used:
Rating = (6.0*2024 Races*2024 Pts Index + 2.4*2023 Races*2023 Pts Index +1.2*2022 Races*2022 Pts Index +0.4*2021 Races*2021 Pts Index + 23*53.6) / (6.0*2024 Races + 2.4*2023 Races +1.2*2022 Races +0.4*2021 Races + 23)
The result is a rating that uses multiple seasons’ worth of data — giving more weight to 2024 — while regressing small-sample drivers toward a low Pts+ index.
For this week’s track projections, I also use a 6-3-1 weighting scheme for each driver’s performance at each track, where races at that specific track receive a weight of 6, primary similar tracks get a weight of 3 and secondary similar tracks get a weight of 1. Those are combined with the recency weighting from the overall ratings to get ratings at each track. The “Diff.” category represents the gap between weighted projected performance at that track and the driver’s overall rating. (This will tell you who does better at this track than usual.)
Filed under: NASCAR