Michael McDowell shocked the NASCAR world earlier this season when he won at the IMS road course to secure his place in the playoffs. Before that victory, not many people believed that the Front Row Motorsports driver would make it into the final 16. It was indeed one of the most memorable races of the year as the 38-year-old fought off a desperate Chase Elliott who was chasing a victory to get into the playoffs himself. Now in the playoffs, the odds are once again stacked against McDowell.

Going by what is being said in and around NASCAR circles, it doesn’t look like McDowell has a lot of people backing him to get past the first round. 

“I don’t think I see their performance”: NASCAR insider shows little faith in FRM

The first stage of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs will see three races at the end of which the race-winning drivers and the ones who have enough points to be in the top 12 will qualify for the next round. The bottom four will be eliminated.

Although McDowell will have three opportunities to win a race or amass enough points, many believe that FRM will not be able to deliver as they did at Indianapolis. In a recent episode of GoPRN Live, NASCAR insider Brad Gillie was previewing the upcoming playoffs and predicting the four drivers who will be eliminated after the first set of three races. The first name on that list was Ricky Stenhouse Jr, followed immediately by Michael McDowell. 

“Michael McDowell, I don’t think he advances to the next round. I just think the way the tracks lay out between Darlington, Kansas, and the Bristol night race, I don’t think I see their performance getting him into the next round,” Gillie said.

Like a lot of people, Gillie believes that McDowell’s Indy performance was a flash in the pan and that FRM does not have the level of consistency to get the 38-year-old into the round of 12. He raises a valid point. While fans might have been inspired by the underdog story at IMS, McDowell’s record of two top-5s and six top-10s this season does little to convince anyone that he currently has what it takes to make it through to the round of 12 in the playoffs.

If he does manage to prove his doubters wrong and pull off something similar to what he did at Indianapolis, it would be an incredible story but right now, his form does not suggest that he will go any further in the Cup Series this year.

Brad Gillie is not the only person who Michael McDowell has failed to impress ahead of the playoffs. On a recent episode of The Teardown, renowned journalists Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi, while discussing the 2023 playoffs, also wrote McDowell off.

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Jeff Gluck said that the 2023 playoffs field is perhaps the most competitive one of recent times, but the FRM man was not in contention when he was talking about the drivers that could have an impact.

“Kyle Busch, you don’t know what to expect out of him in the playoffs. He could do something. Harvick, he doesn’t have a win but at the same time you’re like, wait a minute now, Harvick could easily, you know as good as they are at maximizing their results, they could do something. Chastain, we still haven’t felt like, you know, well they’re off but they could do something. So, aside from McDowell, no offense, Stenhouse, yeah there’s some pretty good [competition].” 

While it is true that McDowell’s record does not indicate that he will be able to do much in the playoffs, nobody believed that he would win a race in 2023 either, let alone at Indianapolis. NASCAR is a funny sport and it has proven everyone wrong time and again. Will McDowell shock everyone again? Only time will tell.

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