Roger Diez: Make-or-break race for NASCAR playoff

How quickly things can change in racing. At the end of the elimination race in the NASCAR Cup Round of 12, Joey Logano, not advancing to Round of 8. A week later he was the first driver to qualify for the championship round at Phoenix. Once again Logano demonstrated his impressive fuel-saving ability, but he was lucky there was no overtime. A disappointed Christopher Bell led 155 of the 267 laps finished second while Logano led just six circuits. Bell came out of the race 42 points above the cut line. Kyle Larson had a fraught race with a holed front bumper from debris and a Keystone Kops pit stop that put him two laps down. He finally made it back to the lead lap with an 11th-place finish and 35 points above the cut line. William Byron is the fourth driver currently above the cut line, 27 points to the good. Three playoff contenders had disastrous races with Reddick out after 89 laps, Blaney eight laps down, and Elliott 37 laps behind after repairs in the garage. Drivers below the cut line heading into Homestead are Denny Hamlin (-27 laps), Reddick (-34), Ryan Blaney (-47), and Elliott (-53).

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Homestead will be a make-or-break race for the playoff drivers. There has not been a repeat winner there in seven years.

Seven active drivers have Homestead wins, and five of them are still alive in the playoffs. Hamlin has three wins, with Bell, Larson, Byron, and Logano one each. Non-playoff driver Kyle Busch has two victories, and Martin Truex Jr. one. Bell is the defending winner, and the sting of his loss at Las Vegas will add to his motivation. Three-time winner Hamlin is also highly motivated, looking to advance to the championship round and win the title for the first time. But if a non-playoff winner takes the checker, points will suddenly become much more important.

NASCAR Cup qualifying will stream on the NBC Sports app at 6:50 a.m. on Saturday with the Craftsman Trucks’ Baptist Health 200 at 9 a.m. and the AMEX Credit 300 for the Xfinity series on the CW at 12:30 p.m. Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 airs on NBC at 11:30 a.m.

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Ferrari scored a 1-2 victory last Sunday in the U.S. Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, with Charles Leclerc leading teammate Carlos Sainz to the checker by 8.562 seconds. McLaren’s Lando Norris was next across the line, but a five-second penalty dropped him to fourth behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Those three points combined with Verstappen’s sprint race win Saturday extended his lead over Norris in the drivers’ championship to 57 points.

McLaren still holds a 40-point advantage over Red Bull in the constructors’ championship and Ferrari has closed to within eight points of Red Bull for third.

This weekend Formula 1 is at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the Mexican City Grand Prix. The 2.674-mile, 17-turn course at 7,349 feet above sea level is less of a challenge for today’s hybrid turbocharged cars than for the normally aspirated machines of the past. This will be the ninth race at the track since F1 returned in 2015 after a 23-year hiatus. Verstappen has won five times for Red Bull, and Hamilton has scored two of Mercedes three victories. But we could very well see a different team at the top of the podium Sunday, perhaps McLaren or Ferrari.

Qualifying airs Saturday at 2 p.m. on ESPN and the race is on ESPN on Sunday at 1 p.m.

Finally, congratulations to A.J. Allmendinger on his win in last Saturday’s Xfinity race at Las Vegas, putting him into the Championship round at Phoenix.