After claiming the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series regular season title a race early with a win at Dover International Speedway, Kevin Harvick will start Saturday’s regular-season finale, the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, from the pole.
“Well, it’s something that we’ve never done before, so any time you can do something for the first time, it’s definitely fun to accomplish, and I think in this instance, it definitely pays dividends in the playoff points,” Harvick said of his regular-season title. “Look, that’s really what you want to accomplish in the regular season – to gain as many playoff points as you can. We’ve done that by winning races. We’ve done that in a number of different ways throughout the year, just trying to be consistent and make up for days when things aren’t going good and make finishes out of them. It’s been a great 25 weeks, and hopefully, we can have a good week in Daytona and see where it all falls after that.”
Harvick will share the front row of the Daytona starting grid with Martin Truex Jr.
All of the top-five starters — including Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski in third and fourth and Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola in fifth — for Saturday night’s race already have clinched playoff berths. The top starter among those still looking to lock-up a playoff berth will be William Byron in fifth.
Byron leads a trio of Hendrick Motorsports drivers in close proximity on Saturday’s starting grid. Seven-time champion and retiring Jimmie Johnson will start in the seventh position, sharing the fourth row on the grid with teammate Alex Bowman. Bowman, unlike Johnson and Byron, already has a clinched playoff berth, courtesy of an early-season race win. Meanwhile, Johnson and Byron will be among those contending for three unclaimed playoff slots.
“Yeah, of course we want all four [HMS] cars in the playoffs and to go through the rounds in the playoffs,” Johnson said. “So that would be the sweet thing. For me, I feel like I’m racing more for my team. On top of that and an extension of that would be for the fans. I know where I am in my heart, and I know that I’m still very, very competitive, can get the job done, win races and be a threat for the championship. There’s just more variables to the reality of that than I think even I realized. I’ve had it so good with all those variables in place and was able to win five championships in a row, win all those races and seven championships in total. But I’m a better driver today than I was then, and I firmly believe that.”
The Hendrick duo of Johnson and Byron will be the only two drivers in the top-10 positions on Saturday night’s starting grid not already in the playoffs. Starting in row five will be Ryan Blaney and Denny Hamlin, who trails only Harvick in race wins in the first 25 races of 2020 with six.
“I don’t know exactly what my strategy will be with Daytona,” Hamlin said. “I want to give myself a shot to win, and I also want to – if I can help my teammates at all and have them have a shot to win – I need to be around at the finish. I typically try to race as much as I can up towards the front. I’ll probably try to do that strategy, as well. You just never know. This race, in particular, seems to have a little more attrition than even normal superspeedway races have.”
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