Track: Atlanta Motor Speedway
Location: Hampton, Georgia
Track length: 1.54 miles
When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,055,250
Race distance: 260 laps | 400.4 miles
Stages: 60 | 160 | 260
Defending winner: Daniel Suárez, February 2024
Starting lineup: Ryan Blaney won the pole
Maximize your points now before the field spreads out
The only driver satisfied with his points position right now? William Byron — your two-time defending Daytona 500 winner.
After his “Great American Race” win to open the season on Feb. 16, Byron not only cemented his status as one of just 14 drivers to win the most prestigious race of the year multiple times, but he’s the first — and only — Cup driver guaranteed a spot in this year’s playoffs.
With superspeedways Daytona and Atlanta kicking off the season with the road course at Circuit of The Americas to follow, the door is open for plenty of drivers to punch their postseason ticket and not have to sweat their points situation going into the more traditional tracks on the schedule like Phoenix Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway next month.
In 2024, both Bubba Wallace and Chris Buescher were on the wrong side of the playoff picture when the checkered flag waved at Darlington Raceway in the regular-season finale. Wallace, who enters Sunday’s race 21st in points, has emphasized the need to start on the right foot early in the season.
MORE: Cup standings | Full 2025 schedule
“It’s crucial. I mean, Denny [Hamlin, 23XI Racing co-owner] has said since day one of this new team that every point matters,” Wallace said. “I win a duel and I get 10 points, and I finished 29th in the 500 and I still get 10 points. So … damn. We got 20 points at least so that’s good. The season’s fully underway. You can’t give up the little things because you’ll get down to the last three or four races and be scrapping and clawing for everything. We’ve been in the bubble spot for the last two years, three years, whatever it is.
“I’m ready to be locked in early so we’ve got to do everything we can right early to make that happen.”
Buescher weaved around the final-lap calamity last Sunday to bring home a top-10 finish in the Daytona 500. While he went winless in the regular season last year, the driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford is much more confident at every type of track rather than banking on a superspeedway or road course to find Victory Lane.
“These tracks have been very strong for us, but I think the high note for us as an organization has been the fact that most race tracks have been very good for us,” said Buescher, a winner at the Watkins Glen road course in 2024. “We haven’t really had to depend on one style of race track the last two years I’d call it, which has been a huge step in the right direction for us. So when we look at this season, no, we didn’t really circle these as ‘got to make it happen here.’
“On the flip side of that, it is a big goal for us this season to win early and I think we’ve had a lot of discussion about the first eight [races]. How do we make the first eight races better than they’ve been in the past? It’s not as much about the style of race track or what track it is as much it’s about just getting the momentum started right for us quicker. It seems to have been our miss the last couple years and where we’ve given up too much ground too early in the season, and that’s been the goal for us is ‘how do we make this stronger to fire off.””
Atlanta will need to be a big points day for some of the perennial playoff drivers as Kyle Larson, Hamlin and Christopher Bell all find themselves below the top 16 in the standings entering Sunday’s race.
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
While qualifying isn’t a point of emphasis on drafting tracks with the ability to maneuver through a pack, crews are still going to want a good pit stall to minimize potential issues on a very narrow pit road at Atlanta. Along with a tight navigation from pit entry to exit, the route to pit road is different than other tracks.
The entrance to pit road begins toward the end of the backstretch into Turn 3 where drivers have a 90-mph speed limit to wrap around the corner before coming to a 45-mph crawl on the frontstretch. Under caution, the limit is 45 mph around the whole pit-lane route.
Adam Stevens, crew chief of Christopher Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, said a key aspect Sunday will be limiting green flag pit stops if possible.
“There’s a couple different ways to look at it. The opportunity for mistake is probably amplified with the quirky pit road,” Stevens told NASCAR.com on Friday. “We got to run 90 [mph] through the corner and getting that right and maximizing that … there’s a risk with that. You just lose so much time that if you made a mistake on a green-flag stop and had to do a pass-through, it could pretty much ruin your whole day. So you’re going to try not to make a green-flag stop. That’s going to be the goal, which means taking opportunities to fill it full of fuel and maximizing the length of the runs.”
Having a drama-free pit entry will also be a point of emphasis on Sunday. In last year’s race, multiple drivers made contact or spun trying to get slowed down off Turn 2 to get to the pit-road limit. Michael McDowell, who led 27 laps in that event, spun after getting together with William Byron, and it ultimately took McDowell out of contention for the race win despite recovering for an eighth-place result.
Matt Swiderski, crew chief of defending Atlanta spring winner Daniel Suárez and the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team, highlighted the importance of pit-stall selection that could aid in minimizing run-ins with the competition.
“We actually talked a lot about pit road and where we want to be for pit stalls,” Swiderski told NASCAR.com. “There were so many cars just knocking fenders in, and it’s a tough pit road. It’s really crowded and the stalls are pretty small and slippery. [We] actually put a little bit more focus on qualifying, and it really has more to do with getting a better pit stall than actual starting position, because we think we can race our way back up through the field.”
Suárez qualified 29th for Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 and will pit from stall No. 39.
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday’s race
History tells us…
Don’t be the Pied Piper in the closing laps. According to Racing Insights, the pass for the win came in the final two laps in four of the last five races at Atlanta. Winner of two of the last four races in Georgia, Joey Logano made the pass for the victory on the final lap, and most recently in September, led the last three miles that catapulted his run to championship No. 3.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
TODD GILLILAND. On paper, a 26th-place result in last year’s spring Atlanta race doesn’t look appealing but Front Row Motorsports had two rockets in that race with both Gilliland and then-FRM driver Michael McDowell (now with Spire Motorsports) leading a combined 85 laps. With three cars now in the organization’s stable, Gilliland has an extra teammate to work with, and after a poor showing in the Daytona 500 for all three cars, the Front Row trio of Gilliland, Zane Smith and Noah Gragson will look to get on the right track around the 1.5-mile oval.
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the Speedweeks — get covered for race day from all angles.
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 | Read article
• NASCAR’s newest Harvick: Is William Byron NASCAR’s best closer? | Read article
• No. 19 team penalized: Briscoe, JGR No. 19 team found to have modified spoiler at Daytona; full details | Read article
• As fast as …: 23XI re-ups with Xfinity, bolsters war room at Airspeed | Read article
• Back in the saddle: Byron’s 2024 Daytona 500-winning car might be raced again | Watch video
• NASCAR Classics: Revisit some of the best races in Atlanta’s decorated history | Visit NASCAR Classics
• Paint Scheme Preview: These cars are feeling peachy for the weekend | Pick your favorite
Read the full article here