Dr. Diandra: How qualifying affects stage points

It’s no surprise that qualifying position affects stage points. But it’s not as simple as the fastest cars always making their way to the front. Stage racing forces crew chiefs to balance points and track position.

Stage points will be crucial for the eight drivers trying to reach the championship four. At least one of these drivers will make the championship race on points.

Chase Elliott leads Joey Logano (in second) by 20 points. Logano has five points over third-place Ross Chastain. But the drivers from Chastain to Chase Briscoe (the eighth seed) are separated by just 12 points.

The Next Gen car has upended expectations in 2022, so we should start by asking whether previous years’ results are applicable to this season.

I tallied stage winners between 2017 — when stage racing started — and 2022, along with their starting positions. Drivers who started the race from the back of the field have their own category.

I omitted the Bristol dirt race because it is so different from other races, which leaves 210 stage ones in the dataset.

Stage 1 is pretty consistent across the years. For example: From 2017-21, 62.6% of Stage 1 winners qualified in the first five positions. In the first 32 races of 2022, the percentage is 61.3%.

Each slice in the pie chart below represents the percentage of drivers who qualified in that position and went on to win Stage 1. Qualifying positions are listed in order, going counterclockwise around the chart. “TTB” indicates drivers who started the race at the back.

Fewer drivers who qualify at the rear win stages. One driver corresponds to about a half a percent. That’s not enough drivers to make distinctions between, for example, qualifying 11th or 12th.

However, the data does show that drivers