Ethan Thiel 
The Cup Series is at Sonoma, California this week and qualifying was Saturday afternoon. I’ll take you through some big names and how they fared and what it means for their DFS values going into Sunday’s race. You can see the full pre-qualifying breakdown by following the link here.
My favorite pick for Sunday’s race did not change after Qualifying as Martin Truex Jr. ran a pretty good time and will line up eighth. He should give great value and is still my pick to get the win.
My other huge upside play is Kurt Busch, who has been great at Sonoma and will start 16th Sunday. He started outside the Top 15 both of the past two races here and finished sixth and seventh. His low starting spot does not worry me at all.
The top priced driver this week is Kevin Harvick and he did not run well in qualifying. He will start 23rd. This gives Harvick huge upside as he has shown he can drive his way up from the back. In 2016, Harvick started 25th and finished sixth.
Kyle Larson is starting on the pole for the third consecutive year at Sonoma. Although he has never qualified outside the Top 5, his best finish is 12th in 2016. He could contend but his upside is low and he should not be considered for your lineup.
Chris Buescher qualified 10th and has been pretty good at Sonoma over the past few years. Some people might try to get cute and roster the lesser known names but I think there are better options in his price range.
Included in those options are Alex Bowman and Aric Almirola, who qualified 12th and 15th respectively. These are good starting spots for these two as it shows they have relatively fast cars and they have room for upside.
Austin Dillon should provide good value Sunday. He starts 26th and has never finished worse than 22nd here. Last year he started 27th and finished 16th.
The lowest priced driver I originally gave you was Ryan Preece. He will start 20th and I still like him as a big value pick after his Xfinity road course stats.
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