Brad Keselowski cruises to New Hampshire win
The best Cup Series drivers in 2020 have been Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick. Brad Keselowski is right behind them.
Keselowski got his third victory of the season on Sunday at New Hampshire with an easy win over Hamlin. He had one of the fastest cars all day, and that was evident when he could lead with fresh tires and older tires than the drivers chasing him.
“We’ve had a lot of great races this year in the No. 2 car and we just haven’t really went out and kind of dominated a race,” Keselowski said. “I was talking to [crew chief] Jeremy Bullins and like ‘Man, that’s what we need to get to the next level, we need to go out there and dominate a race’ and that’s what today was.”
Keselowski led 184 of the race’s 301 laps and had a comfortable margin over Hamlin as the race had a long green-flag run to the finish.
Hamlin led 92 laps. No other driver led 10 or more laps. It was really the Keselowski and Hamlin show on Sunday and Keselowski had the upper hand.
Keselowski has been silently consistent as Hamlin and Harvick have gotten the spotlight through the first 19 races of the season. But as Keselowski has won three races, the three drivers have now combined for 11 wins through 20 races in 2020.
Just how consistent has Keselowski been? He hasn’t finished outside the top 20 since crashing out of the Daytona 500 to start the season. And his only finished outside the top 13 in 19 races has been a 19th at Talladega.
Keselowski has been really, really good as Harvick and Hamlin have been great. But really good can get you in position to win a title. Just ask his teammate Joey Logano about the 2018 season. As of now, Keselowski has to be penciled in along with Hamlin and Harvick to make the title race at Phoenix. And when it’s a one-race, winner-take-all format, you never know which of the four title contenders will end up the champion.
Kyle Busch finishes last
A flat tire ended Kyle Busch’s day before anyone else’s. He hit the wall early in the race and ended up in 38th (and last) place.
The 2019 champion has struggled — by his standards — in 2020. But he’s still right in the mix for the playoffs and will make the 16-driver field with ease barring a collapse of epic proportions.
But still, it’s a bit jarring to see Busch winless in 2020 after he took home his second title a year ago.
While Busch has eight top-five finishes in 20 races, he’s also finished outside the top 20 seven different times. And stage points have been relatively hard to come by. That’s why there’s such a chasm between him and Keselowski in the points standings.
NASCAR’s points system harshly penalizes bad finishes. So Busch now sits 10th in the standings, 20 points behind his brother Kurt in ninth and two points ahead of Alex Bowman in 11th. Bowman, by the way, has just two top-five finishes and six top-10 finishes. But he’s avoided the bad finish. So he’s right in the mix with Busch.
Low downforce rules
Sunday’s race featured NASCAR’s low downforce rules and gave us a very entertaining race despite two drivers combining to lead a significant majority of the laps.
Battles for the lead were fierce throughout the race as drivers could actually race each other rather than fight the dirty air off the large spoilers ahead of them. Hamlin and Keselowski put on multiple great battles and there were fights for position throughout the field.
New Hampshire isn’t exactly known for great racing, either. It’s long been a track with races centered around track position. But thanks to a lack of downforce on the cars and tires that wore out more than some anticipated, the race was easily one of the better ones so far this season.
Race results
1. Brad Keselowski
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Martin Truex Jr.
4. Joey Logano
5. Kevin Harvick
6. Matt DiBenedetto
7. Aric Almirola
8. Cole Custer
9. Chase Elliott
10. Tyler Reddick
11. William Byron
12. Jimmie Johnson
13. Austin Dillon
14. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15. Alex Bowman
16. Ryan Preece
17. Kurt Busch
18. Clint Bowyer
19. Michael McDowell
20. Ryan Blaney
21. Ryan Newman
22. Ty Dillon
23. Bubba Wallace
24. Erik Jones
25. Chris Buescher
26. Daniel Suarez
27. Brennan Poole
28. Christopher Bell
29. JJ Yeley
30. James Davison
31. Garrett Smithley
32. Quin Houff
33. Timmy Hill
34. Joey Gase
35. Corey LaJoie
36. John Hunter Nemechek
37. Matt Kenseth
38. Kyle Busch
Points standings
1. Kevin Harvick, 803 points
2. Brad Keselowski, 722
3. Denny Hamlin, 688
4. Ryan Blaney, 684
5. Chase Elliott, 660
6. Joey Logano, 653
7. Martin Truex Jr. 648
8. Aric Almirola, 614
9. Kurt Busch, 581
10. Kyle Busch, 563
11. Alex Bowman, 561
12. Clint Bowyer, 512
14. William Byron, 484
15. Tyler Reddick, 469
16. Austin Dillon, 466
17. Jimmie Johnson, 459
18. Erik Jones, 453
19. Cole Custer, 381
20. Bubba Wallace, 366
– – – – – – –
Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
More from Yahoo Sports:
