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The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season will be Aric Almirola’s last as a full-time driver for Stewart-Haas Racing. He has kicked off his farewell tour in an impressive fashion with the best average finish in the series.
The drivers have only completed two points-paying races out of the scheduled 36, but Almirola has maneuvered his way into contention each week while working with a new crew chief in Drew Blickensderfer. He kicked off the season with a fifth-place finish in the Daytona 500. Almirola followed it up with a sixth-place run at Auto Club Speedway, giving him an average finish of 5.5.
Austin Cindric, the winner of the Daytona 500, currently has the second-best average finish in the Cup Series at 6.5. His 12th-place finish at Auto Club Speedway after he started on the Busch Pole dropped him below Almirola.
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There is one significant difference between the two drivers — their starting position. The rookie driver for Team Penske has an average start of 3.0 after qualifying for the fifth-best spot in the Daytona 500 and winning the Busch Pole the following week.
Almirola, for comparison, has an average starting position of 34.5 after lining up 38th overall the first week of the season and 31st the second. The veteran has had to navigate his way through the field each week to secure top-10 finishes.
Almirola Reached a Career Milestone at Fontana
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GettyAric Almirola prepares for a race at Darlington on Sept. 5.
The sixth-place finish at Auto Club Speedway certainly benefited Almirola in terms of points. He is now seventh overall in the championship standings, well above the cutoff line. The performance also helped him reach a career milestone.
With Almirola securing the top-10 finish in the Wise Power 400 at Auto Club Speedway, he marked the first time in his full-time Cup Series career that he started a year with back-to-back top-10s. He also continued a streak by posting his third consecutive top-10 finish at Fontana despite spinning during qualifying and sustaining some damage during the race.
“We sure had our hands full. It was a crazy day, wow,” Almirola said after the Wise Power 400, transcript courtesy of Stewart-Haas Racing. “These cars are certainly a handful and we worked on it all day and made it to where it was driving better. Then we got some damage and the guys worked on it and got it fixed. It was a solid day for us to come out and have a good start to the West Coast swing and keep our cars in one piece.”
Almirola Will Pursue a Win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
The driver of the No. 10 has the goal of reaching the playoffs during his final season as a full-time driver, and he will pursue it during the second consecutive week on the west coast. He will join his fellow competitors at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and fight for his first win at the 1.5-mile track.
Almirola has 17 total starts at the Nevada track with no trips to Victory Lane. Though he has three consecutive top-10 finishes. He finished 10th during the spring 2018 race, his first with Stewart-Haas Racing, and then he followed it up with a sixth-place finish during the 2018 playoff race.
Almirola’s third top-10 took place early in the 2019 season. He competed in the Pennzoil 400 and finished seventh overall while Team Penske’s Joey Logano reached Victory Lane.
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