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NASCAR odds: Chase Elliott enters second round as significant Cup title favorite

By Nick Bromberg, Yahoo Sports

Chase Elliott Chase Elliott stands on pit road as he waits to qualify for the NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Colin E. Braley)

By Nick Bromberg, Yahoo Sports

Chase Elliott is the big favorite for the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series title ahead of the second round.

Elliott is at +275 to win his second Cup title at BetMGM. He won the regular season title and his four wins are twice as many as anyone in the Cup Series. Thanks to those wins and the regular season title, Elliott is tops in the points standings after the first-round points reset and is 15 points ahead of Joey Logano.

Thirty four points separate Elliott from 12th-place Austin Cindric ahead of the three races in the second round. The second round includes races at Texas, Talladega and the Charlotte Roval and eight drivers will advance to the third round.

No drivers scored automatic berths to the second round of the playoffs because of a win in the first round. Erik Jones, Bubba Wallace and Chris Buescher each scored their first wins of the season in the first round and became the first drivers outside the playoffs to sweep the first round. While Wallace isn’t in the driver’s championship race, the No. 45 car he’s piloting in the playoffs is in the owner’s title mix and is alive in the second round of the owner playoffs.

23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin is the No. 2 favorite to Elliott at +500. Hamlin is one of five drivers with two wins in 2022 and has better odds than defending champion Kyle Larson. He’s at +600 while Logano is at +800 along with Ross Chastain and William Byron is at +1100.

Byron has the longest odds of any driver with two wins because he has just eight top-10 finishes through the first 29 races. But three of those have come in the playoffs as Byron has finished eighth, sixth and third over the past three races. His eighth-place finish at Darlington was his first top 10 since a ninth at Sonoma in June.

Here are the odds for the playoff field with seven races to go in the season.

2022 Cup Series title odds

Chase Elliott, 3,040 points (+275)

Denny Hamlin, 3,013 (+500)

Kyle Larson, 3,019 (+600)

Joey Logano, 3,025 (+800)

Ross Chastain, 3,020 (+800)

Ryan Blaney, 3,013 (+900)

Christopher Bell, 3,013 (+900)

William Byron, 3,015 (+1100)

Alex Bowman, 3,007 (+2200)

Daniel Suarez, 3,007 (+3300)

Chase Briscoe, 3,009 (+3300)

Austin Cindric, 3,006 (+4000)

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