The NASCAR Cup Series will head to Circuit of the Americas in Austin on Sunday for the 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. It's the first road race of the season in NASCAR and the layout used at COTA is an 18-turn, 2.356-mile road course. The race is scheduled for 95 laps and the green flag is scheduled to drop at 3:30 p.m. ET.  Shane Van Gisbergen is the +450 co-favorite for NASCAR at COTA 2025, followed by Tyler Reddick at +450 and Kyle Larson at +750 in the latest 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix odds. The latest Austin weather forecast is calling for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70s. Before making any 2025 NASCAR at COTA predictions, you NEED to see the latest 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix picks from SportsLine's proven projection model.

Our proven projection model has simulated the 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix 10,000 times and come up with a surprising leaderboard. Developed by daily Fantasy pro and SportsLine predictive data engineer Mike McClure, this proprietary NASCAR prediction model takes into account a slew of factors, including track history and recent results.

McClure's model began the 2025 season by calling Chase Elliott's win in the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray for a +300 payout. Then at Daytona, it was also high on William Byron despite +2000 odds. The model also called its first victory of the 2024 season with Kyle Larson winning in Las Vegas for a 21-5 payout then predicted Denny Hamlin's wins in Bristol at 5-1 and Richmond at 17-4. 

It impressively nailed five of Larson's wins during his historic season in 2021, too. All told, the model has nailed a whopping 19 winners since 2021 and hit nine in 2023 alone! Anyone who followed its lead on those NASCAR picks could have seen HUGE returns.

Now, the model has dialed in on NASCAR at Austin 2025 and released its projections.

For the 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, we can tell you the model is high on AJ Allmendinger, even though he's a longshot at +2500 in the latest 2025 NASCAR at Austin odds. He's a target for anyone looking for a HUGE payday. And a massive shocker: Connor Zilisch, one of the top Vegas favorites, stumbles big time and fails to crack the top five! There are far better values in the 2025 NASCAR COTA starting lineup.

The model is also targeting TWO OTHER drivers with odds of 12-1 or longer to make a serious run at the checkered flag! Anyone who backs these drivers could hit it BIG. You ABSOLUTELY need to see who they are before locking in any NASCAR picks.

So who wins the 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, and which EPIC longshots are MUST-BACKS? ... Join SportsLine right now to see the full projected NASCAR at Austin leaderboard, all from the model that's nailed 19 winners, including predicting Chase Elliott to win the 2025 Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray!