The NASCAR Cup Series Chase officially begins Saturday at Darlington Speedway.The Cook Out Southern 500 is the first of 10 races that will decide the championship — whoever accumulates the most points will hoist the trophy from Homestead-Miami Speedway in early November.Denny Hamlin is a -110 favorite to win it all, giving him better than a 50% implied probability. Will he start out strong with his fourth victory at Darlington? NASCAR reporters Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi weigh in with their predictions below.Cook Out Southern 500 oddsDriverOdds at DraftKingsDenny Hamlin+500Tyler Reddick+550Chase Briscoe+650Kyle Larson+700Ryan Blaney+850William Byron+900Christopher Bell+1000Ty Gibbs+1400Joey Logano+1400Chase Elliott+1800Chris Buescher+2200Bubba Wallace+2500Brad Keselowski+2500Ross Chastain+2800Erik Jones+3000Corey Heim+3000Carson Hocevar+3000Josh Berry+4000The Cup Series Chase is here. Denny Hamlin enters with the points lead and is the favorite. Who do you like to challenge him?Jeff: The best bet is one of his Toyota teammates. The top two Toyota organizations, Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing, have each won seven races this season. Team Penske has won five, but no other team — including powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports — has won more than two. Meanwhile, five out of the top six seeds are Toyota drivers. It very well could be Hamlin winning it, but Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs (maybe in that order) are also major threats.Sure, Penske’s Ryan Blaney could emerge as well — but with intermediate tracks making up five of the 10 races, it certainly favors Toyota.Jordan: The list of bonafide contenders to challenge Hamlin is short: JGR teammates Bell, Briscoe and Gibbs, 23XI’s Reddick and then Blaney, who drives a Ford. That’s it. Anyone outside of this group would be a surprise champion, to varying degrees for various reasons. This includes defending series champ Kyle Larson, who hasn’t won a race since May 2025 — a 50-race span — and whose Hendrick team still lacks enough speed to effectively compete against the Toyotas.This year’s adjusted format is not new to NASCAR, but is still different from recent years. How do you think the format change will affect the racing for the next two months?Jeff: My prediction is it takes either nine or 10 clean weeks — no wrecks, no finishes outside of the top 15 — to win the title. You’ve got six elite teams at the top of the standings, and one of them will go on a heater and reel off a bunch of top-five finishes. In the original Chase format, the champion averaged only 0.8 finishes outside the top 15 — a “mulligan” to me. In the playoff format, the champion averaged 2.25 mulligans because they could. But this system doesn’t allow for that, so you’ve got to be near perfect to win it.Jordan: A noticeable change is how much the pressure will be amplified up at the beginning of the Chase. In the previous elimination format, a driver who was comfortably ahead in points wasn’t under immense pressure to perform well during the first handful of races because they knew as long as they minimized mistakes, there was a small chance of sliding into the elimination zone.Now that every race counts the same, though, all 16 drivers in the Chase will roll into Darlington knowing they must perform well in all 10 races — not just selectively.Who is your pick to win in Darlington?Jeff: Chase Briscoe has won back-to-back Southern 500s for two different teams, but only Jeff Gordon (1995-98) has won at least three straight Southern 500s. It’s a tall order in one of NASCAR’s toughest races. That said, I believe it will be a Toyota — perhaps Tyler Reddick, who has the best average finish in Next Gen races at Darlington, or Hamlin, who starts off the Chase with a big points night.Jordan: This Chase is going to be all about Hamlin’s pursuit of a first-ever series title, and he begins this quest by winning the Southern 500 for a fourth time. It will be a message sending night for the JGR driver, reinforcing the notion that this is his championship to win or lose.Will anyone outside the Chase contend at the front — or will it just be the top 16 in the running?Jeff: I wouldn’t be surprised if something like nine of the top 10 finishers are Chase drivers. Brad Keselowski has run very well at Darlington and is one of the drivers who could surprise with a top-five finish, but barring a big wreck or fluky circumstances, the Chase drivers are there for a reason. It’s hard to picture someone else suddenly turning it on after being unable to do so in the regular season.Jordan: Keselowski immediately comes to mind. He won both stages and led a race-high amount of laps here in the spring before ultimately finishing runner-up to Reddick.Erik Jones is also always a threat to contend whenever NASCAR visits its oldest superspeedway. He is a two-time Southern 500 winner and finished 10th here in the spring race.