What to watch for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Playoff race at Homestead

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — The Cup playoffs move to South Florida, and a lot will be on the line in the round of 16 race.

Joey Logano’s win last week in Las Vegas advanced him to the Championship 4. That leaves seven drivers for the final three spots in the title race.

Here’s what to watch for Sunday’s race (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC) at Homestead-Miami Speedway:

1. Split playoff field

The difference between those in a transfer spot and those below the cut line split the field in terms of potential strategy.

Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, and William Byron are on a shuttle to Homestead.

Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick, defending champion Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott are all below the cut line. Hamlin is the closest at 27 points from a transfer spot.

Blaney and Elliott say they’re in a must-win situation moving forward. While Hamlin and Reddick admit it’s possible to move up in the points, they’re focused on winning.

Bell (2023), Larson (2022) and Byron (2021) have won the last three races at Homestead. Bell noted that all three must be concerned about points, as at least one of the three will need to advance through points in the title race. Bell is 42 points above the cut line, Larson is 35 points above it and Byron is 27 points above the cut line.

“Plus 42 (points) sounds great until you realize every time someone wins, that cut line gets smaller and smaller, or that gap from the cut line,” Bell said. “You’re never safe and it’s going to be a battle. It’s going to be a battle to the checkered flag at Martinsville and, you know, everybody knows how important those wins are.”

2. What’s next?

Tyler Reddick, who is 30 points short of the mark, was asked this weekend if he felt he still had a chance to advance in the points race.

“If we have pretty calm races from here until the last lap at Martinsville, I’d say it’s probably too big of a deficit,” he said, “but I feel like every crazy race in this playoff, something crazy has happened, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Reddick, who will start at pole position, is right about the chaotic nature of these playoffs.

Last week in Las Vegas, his car overturned after sparking a crash that included fellow playoff drivers Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney. Joey Logano, who advanced in this round after Alex Bowman’s disqualification, won that race.

These playoffs also saw much of the wreckage of the field at Talladega, with Kyle Larson having bad runs in the first two races before winning later in the same round, and various mishaps in the pits by multiple drivers.

In this race last year, Larson hit the barrels at the entrance to pit road. Bell also rallied from deep to win.

So it makes you wonder what’s next in this race.

3. Seeking to regain power

While Denny Hamlin has posted top-10 finishes in four top-10s in the last five races, they haven’t been good for the Joe Gibbs Racing team.

Pit issues cost him spots in two of the last four races (Kansas and Las Vegas). He has scored one point in the last seven stages. Hamlin led just five laps in the playoffs.

“It’s definitely not the best time to not be on our A-game, all around, including myself,” said Hamlin, who sits 27 points below the line. “The good news is we still have a chance even this late in the game.”

What will it take to turn his fortune around?

“We have to perform to the best of our ability and we just haven’t shown that in a while,” Hamlin said. “So where do I start? I make sure, no matter what, I give the team the information they need. I make sure I work during the week to get better. I make sure that, you know, I execute on the racetrack and give the team a better opportunity to succeed. There are a lot of things in my improvement bucket that I need to get out.”

As for the pit crew? The team did not make any changes to the unit.

“You ride with the group you got,” Hamlin said. “I’m definitely in crisis, for sure. But, we have to go and feel that this is the best group we can put on pit road. … They were the best pit crew for the first quarter of this year. But there were certainly many different problems on pit road. Most of the time we go down (pit road), it’s been different things, so we can’t really pinpoint a consistent problem that we’ve had. So I just have to see where it goes.”

4. Team Penske Teamwork

One of the points made this season is how closely Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and their teams have worked together this season. That’s not to say there were problems in the past, just that the working relationship is better than ever.

“The two teams have definitely been working together a lot lately on setting up,” Logano said. “ … I think Blaney and I work really well together off the racetrack and on the track. And that relationship grew even more after his championship, which I think is great. And it seems like we’ve been able to be really open with each other.”

Team Penske has won the last two Cup championships. Logano won the title in 2022 and Blaney won it last year.

With Logano already in the title race, the focus turns to getting Blaney back in the championship event.

“I think me and Joey work really well together and always have,” Blaney said. “I feel like it’s gotten better every year. I feel like as you get older, he and I have become the two veteran guys on the Penske side over there. It’s like, okay, we have to rely on each other, like really take the reins.”