Marcos Ambrose 2010 Preview, Predictions & Odds

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Marcos Ambrose 2009 Stats

Marcos Ambrose 2009 Recap & Review

Ambrose was one of the wild cards of the 2009 season, moving up with his Nationwide team full-time while working out of the Michael Waltrip Racing shop. It was a rocky transition at first, with subpar finishes in the first four races, including a 38th at Atlanta after blowing an engine.

Quietly, critics whispered whether the jump to a Cup schedule was the right move for the driver from Down Under after three years of lukewarm success in NASCAR’s lower tiers. But after a 10th-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway – a track that can test the talent and nerve of even the most established veterans in the sport people started taking notice.

That run started an intriguing pattern for the sport’s developing Australian talent. With two top 10s at restrictor plate races (Talladega, Daytona) combined with a third at Bristol in August, the No. 47 car proved to be a force at the series’ smallest and largest tracks. In between, the driver shined about where you’d expect, with a sixth at the quirky Pocono triangle to go along with a third at Infineon. But his best performance was clearly at Watkins Glen in August, where Ambrose led nine laps and charged to a runner-up finish behind fellow right-turn specialist Tony Stewart.

That left Ambrose on the outskirts of Chase contention until a 35th-place at Michigan the following week put those long shot playoff dreams to rest. The driver quietly working on consistency and track familiarization over the season’s final 10 races, with five more top 20s leaving Ambrose 18th in points, two spots better than fellow first-year competitor Joey Logano.

Marcos Ambrose 2010 Preview & Prediction

When Australian Supercar driver Marcos Ambrose made the jump to the Cup Series full-time in 2009, most believed the road course expert would run well at Infineon, Watkins Glen … and that’s about it.

It turns out Ambrose had a few surprises in store for all of us. Yes, he scored the requisite top-5 finishes on the road courses, but he also collected two other top 5s and five additional top 10s along the way to exceed everyone’s expectations — including his own.

And plenty more seems to be on the horizon for Ambrose and his JTG-Daugherty Racing team as they head into their second full-time season in the Cup Series. In October, the team inked a deal to continue its technical alliance with Michael Waltrip Racing, and they also signed up long-term sponsors in Lance Snacks, Kleenex, Kroger and Bush’s Baked Beans to sponsor the No. 47 Toyota for various events in 2010. Those companies join a rotation including Little Debbie, Kingsford and Clorox that will adorn the hood, making this team one of the better-funded groups on the circuit. To secure such sponsorship in this time of economic uncertainty — particularly when high-profile organizations like Roush and Hendrick need extra funding — is a testament to the early success of what is technically a single-car effort guided by crew chief Frank Kerr.

That 300-point giveaway came from two main areas the team needs to address this offseason. The first is its intermediate program, where Ambrose struggled to the tune of zero top-10 finishes in 17 starts. With those tracks making up six of the 10 Chase races, it’ll be impossible to contend in the playoffs — let alone make them — without significant improvement. And while Toyota horsepower is up there with some of the best in the business, Ambrose’s two DNFs were for engine failures, the lowlights within a handful of races where mechanical gremlins popped up. That’s one thing that separates Chase contenders from pretenders: The former do not spend their Sundays sitting helplessly in the garage.

With the competition expected to be tighter than ever this season, it’s difficult to see Ambrose in the Chase (although a road course win is a real possibility, if not an expected result). But then again, no one expected him to end ’09 inside the top 20. The future definitely looks bright for Ambrose. And know this much heading to Daytona in February: This team has served notice; it will be one to watch regardless of the expectations placed upon it heading into the season.

Marcos Ambrose 2010 Predictions

We predict that Marcos Ambrose will finish 16th in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Marcos Ambrose Betting & Odds

Marcos Ambrose NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship Odds: +10000

Marcos Ambrose Betting Trends & Situations

• after finishing worse than 15th, average finish is 23.3
• when racing in February, average finish is 28.8

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