The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season is here. Cars will take to the track this weekend for the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 1, and the 68th running of the Daytona 500 is less than three weeks away.
Only two Cup drivers — Daniel Suarez and Connor Zilisch — are entering the season in new rides, but with the return of The Chase and the removal of the elimination championship format, there’s a lot to discuss as the Cup Series moves into the fifth season of the Next Gen era.
For 2026, Frontstretch staff voted on a top-30 ranking, taking into account each driver’s 2025 season as well as their outlook for 2026. With a first-place vote netting 30 points for a driver, the maximum score is 480. A second-place vote nets 29 points, a third-place vote 28 points, all the way down to a 30th-place vote that nets one point.
Below is where we landed. Check back tomorrow (Jan. 29) for position Nos. 20-11, followed by the top 10 on Jan. 30.
30. Daniel Suarez
Points: 30
Daniel Suarez enters 2026 as a bit of a wildcard. After a 2024 campaign that saw him secure a playoff berth and a thrilling victory, his 2025 season was nothing short of disappointing. Ending the year 29th in points and hunting for a new ride, Suarez now finds himself at Spire Motorsports, looking to prove he still belongs in the Cup conversation.
A portion of Suarez’s 2025 decline can be traced back to his performances at EchoPark Speedway. Atlanta had been one of the stronger venues for the No. 99 team for which Suarez previously drove. In 2024, Suarez took the checkered flag in a historic .003-second photo finish. In 2025, he vanished from the front, settling for 33rd- and 34th-place finishes and doing himself no favors in the points standings.
Suarez’s reputation as a top-tier road-course racer also took a hit last year. Despite a schedule heavy with five road courses and the Chicago street course, the 2022 Sonoma Raceway winner failed to record a single top five in these races. The field has simply caught up. With the emergence of former teammate Shane van Gisbergen and the arrival of the phenom who took his Trackhouse Racing seat, Zilisch, the competition on road courses is now fiercer than it has ever been.
Is Spire a step down or a sideways move into a better opportunity? Suarez will be taking over the No. 7 previously driven by Justin Haley, who finished 31st in the 2025 standings with just two top 10s. Although Trackhouse posted six wins and fielded two playoff drivers in 2025 compared to Spire’s zero wins and zero playoff drivers, there is still a promising sign on Spire’s side. In 2025, Spire drivers had an average starting position of 18.8 compared to Trackhouse’s 21.3. Spire was a team that came to the track with speed but lacked the finishes to match.
Taking over a 31st-place car may take some of the pressure off Suarez. He proved he can still execute at a high level when given competitive equipment, evidenced by his emotional NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series win for JR Motorsports at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez last year.
While consensus might not have him pegged for a playoff run, his move to Spire isn’t just a fresh start, it’s also a bet on himself and a chance to surprise some people in 2026. -Steve Sonderman
29. Todd Gilliland
Points: 45
Todd Gilliland heads into the season with a dose of good news already, as the cloud of Front Row Motorsports’ lawsuit against NASCAR has run its course. With that distraction gone, Gilliland and co. have one less thing to triage their way around.
With that element gone, the agenda going into year five in the Cup Series is simple for Gilliland: to take what he has been able to do in small slices of the season and build that out.
Without question, Gilliland’s best shot at a win has been at Talladega Superspeedway. It’s fair to say that the mammoth 2.66-mile track has been good to the driver hailing from the Tar Heel State. How good has Gilliland been at Talladega? In eight races there, he has a top 10 in half of them. Last fall nearly saw him capture a win there as he finished a career-best second.
But don’t count out Gilliland at Indianapolis Motor Speedway either, where in two races he has battled to finish sixth twice.
Key for Gilliland in 2026? It not being a surprise to see him running up front. A year ago saw him drive the No. 34 to a finish in the top 10 a total of five times, so the intent is clearly to build upon that.
Other than Talladega and Indianapolis, the best average finish for Gilliland at an active Cup track is 14.3 at EchoPark, and Gilliland has an average finish of 20th or better, but just one in the top 10 of the tracks on this year’s schedule. -Brad Harrison
28. Zane Smith
Points: 61
The 2025 season was a disappointing one for FRM, with all three drivers finishing outside of the top 25 in points. It did, however, achieve what could be perceived as a victory this offseason, reaching a settlement with NASCAR in its antitrust lawsuit.
Zane Smith will be looking to build off of the momentum gained in the courtroom and put together more consistent on track performances in 2026.
Smith and Gilliland had very similar seasons and statistics. In fact, they were separated by only one point in the standings and had the same amount of top fives (one) and top 10s (five).
2025 did have its bright spots for Smith. He won the pole in the spring at Talladega and in the fall shared the lead with Gilliland with 10 laps to go before settling for a ninth-place finish.
Another success for Smith came at the Bristol Motor Speedway night race, where he contended for a win and ultimately finished third.
A viral highlight, though not a positive one for Smith, was his wall ride at Kansas after making contact with John Hunter Nemechek. The wreck was frightening, as his car careened down the frontstretch perpendicular to the wall, and it was a relief that he emerged unscathed. What is often lost in the clip is the context of Smith’s race. At the time, he was contending for a top 10, and the wreck was just one of several unfortunate breaks he suffered this season.
Although Smith showed flashes of promise in 2025, his team lacks the resources to consistently compete at the level of the top-tier squads, and this is reflected in his current position in the power rankings. -Sonderman
27. AJ Allmendinger
Points: 72
AJ Allmendinger is likely looking forward to the start of a new year after some hard crashes in the final few months last season. At Talladega in October, Allmendinger was tagged while running near the front and slammed hard into the outside wall. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he pushed through and continued the rest of the year. He also had another big impact at Phoenix Raceway in the season finale.
Despite the rough goings, the 44-year-old was able to get two top fives and seven top 10s on a variety of racetracks. This included a fourth at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a sixth at Chicago and a fifth in the fall Darlington Raceway event.
This year, Allmendinger will perform well at the road courses and could be one to watch on the 1.5-mile tracks and Bristol. However, with Kaulig Racing fielding five trucks in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, it is unclear how much resources will go into its Cup program. If the team spreads out the funding, Allmendinger likely won’t win any races (as van Gisbergen is certainly the one to beat on the road courses), but he should at least earn some top 10s and 15s.
It’ll be interesting to see where he’ll be ranked this year with the new championship format. In 2025 he was 26th; if he and the team want to make it into The Chase, they’ll likely need a lot of stage points in addition to good results. -Joy Tomlinson
26. Austin Dillon
Points: 77
Austin Dillon has suddenly established himself as one of the best drivers at Richmond Raceway with back-to-back wins, and his impressive triumph at The Action Track last year proved that his controversial 2024 win was no fluke.
The bad news for Dillon, however, is that a Richmond win will not be enough for him to earn a spot in The Chase. The only way to qualify is to be top 16 in regular-season points after 26 races, and if the last three years are any indication, that will be a tall, tall order for Dillon and the No. 3 team to accomplish.
The last time Dillon posted a season-long average finish better than 20th was 2022. He doesn’t score many stage points, and he’s been outside the top 25 in full-season points in each of the last three years. Combine those together and Dillon and the No. 3 will have to take a massive leap to even sniff qualifying for The Chase in 2026.
Richard Childress Racing’s performance has nosedived with each passing year of the Next Gen era, and Dillon has admitted to having disagreements with grandfather and team owner Richard Childress over the direction of the team. Disagreements aside, it’s abundantly clear that what RCR has outside of Richmond isn’t working, and it desperately needs a change.
For 2026, expect Dillon to contend for the win at Richmond and superspeedways as usual. He won’t make The Chase, but the new year presents the perfect opportunity for RCR to rebuild. His performance will ultimately depend on the progress (or lack thereof) that RCR makes over the offseason. -Stephen Stumpf
25. John Hunter Nemechek
Points: 82
2025 was Nemechek’s best season in the Cup Series, with career highs for top-five and top 10 finishes. It ultimately reflects improvement in general at Legacy Motor Club.
In 2024, Nemechek was 34th in points, the worst driver in the standings who ran all 36 races. Compared to that season, he improved his average finishing position to a little worse than 20th.
A decent amount of the improvement in form last season was the No. 42 team finally shaking off the mess that was 2023, continuing to build toward LMC in general becoming a more formidable organization week in and week out within the Cup Series.
For 2026, Nemechek just needs to build on what he did in 2025. The season was marked by a strong start; repeating that wouldn’t be bad. There were two lean stretches during the year. Crashing out in consecutive weeks at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway in September was bad, and the latter stretches of the season were pretty substandard.
Improving some of that form could put him as an outside contender to make The Chase. If he doesn’t improve the form, then finishing 25th is pretty much where he’ll be. -Phil Allaway
24. Erik Jones
Points: 109
If there is a high-water mark for Erik Jones at Legacy, it was four seasons ago. 2022 saw Jones not only capture a win at the Southern 500 but also log 13 top-10 finishes, a model of strong consistency for the No. 43 and his best season since coming over to LMC.
Since then, the drive has been to get back to that mark, as Jones has picked up no more than seven top 10s in a season. Enter new crew chief Justin Alexander, in place of Ben Beshore. Alexander arrives from RCR, where he guided Dillon to multiple race wins.
Jones has shown spots of being able to run up front, notably at Darlington Raceway. Sometimes, a driver has a track figured out. There is no science to it, but for Jones, that track is Darlington. Another strong run there this spring could pay dividends, as a good start to a season can springboard to better things over the course of the schedule.
And then there’s the superspeedway style of racing; Jones is a continual factor at Daytona International Speedway, Talladega and EchoPark. It’s hard not to glance up and down the starting order at these three tracks and peg the No. 43 as a car to watch.
Factor that in with last year’s top-10 finishes at Texas Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway, and this is a team that can regularly run well as long as it finds the mark of consistency, something that the new points system in the Cup Series will place a greater emphasis on. -Harrison
23. Michael McDowell
Points: 114
The question surrounding Michael McDowell going into 2025 was what would change with his transition from FRM to Spire. The answer? Not much.
While some middle-of-the-pack drivers have had tremendous highs and lows, you know what you’re going to get with McDowell. Decent-to-above average on the ovals and a contender on the road courses. He followed up two top fives, seven top 10s and six poles in 2025 with three top fives and six top 10s in his first year with Spire.
While the numbers ended up nearly identical, McDowell’s success in 2026 rarely came from raw qualifying speed like he had in previous years with FRM. Spire had their share of mechanical gremlins — look no further than Carson Hocevar and the runs he had upended last year — but McDowell and crew chief Travis Peterson found a way to finish all but two races.
Their most impressive run came in the second race of the season at EchoPark, where they finished 13th after falling six laps down due to a power steering issue at the end of stage one. McDowell’s bread and butter, the road courses, saw him fifth in Mexico City and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL and a season-best fourth at Sonoma Raceway.
Since winning the 2021 Daytona 500, the 41-year-old McDowell has finally found his footing after years of grinding away with lower-tier teams. The trust level with McDowell might be the highest among those racing under the Spire banner in 2026, but there’s an undeniable ceiling for both driver and team. While he went to the playoffs twice under the win-and-you’re-in format, making the playoffs this season would be the biggest feat of his career. -James Krause
22. Kyle Busch
Points: 166
There was a time when it felt like three weeks couldn’t go by without Kyle Busch winning a Cup race.
Now, he’s staring down the possibility of reaching a three-year span since he last hoisted a Cup trophy.
The frequency of wins we saw from Busch in the 2000s and 2010s are likely in the rearview mirror. At 40 years old, the Las Vegas native has more runway behind him than ahead, and he’s at a RCR organization that has never fully recovered from the loss of Dale Earnhardt 25 years ago.
Despite the odds swinging more against him, there is one factor that leans in his favor. And that’s simply the fact that he still is Kyle Busch.
A second-consecutive winless campaign looked bleak at times, but after a crew chief change occurred for the final five races of 2025, Busch scored a pair of top 10s, including a top five in the season finale at Phoenix.
Baby steps are essential right now, and the welcoming of 2024 O’Reilly champion crew chief Jim Pohlman feels like the right move to make that happen. Pohlman moves over from JRM after three seasons with Justin Allgaier, during which the duo achieved nine wins, the 2024 title and three Championship 4 appearances.
Improved raw speed will certainly be a goal for a refreshed No. 8, and with the return of The Chase as the championship format, stage points become even more vital for drivers. That was the kryptonite of Busch last season, who ranked 25th in the series with only 50 stage points.
Busch also recorded a career-low three top fives, and he matched his career low of top 10s from 2024. Additionally, he only paced the field for 88 laps, the first season in which he didn’t reach 100 laps led.
There were several times last season where it looked as though Busch was trying to get too much out of his car, something he thrived at with the Gen 6 car but struggled with in the Next Gen era. Confidence has to grow in the form of execution, more time at the front, and faster, better-handling cars. If those come together, there is a good chance of things getting a bit more Rowdy in victory lane this season. -Luken Glover
21. Ty Gibbs
Points: 173
Entering his fourth full-time Cup season in 2026, Ty Gibbs continues the search for his first career victory in NASCAR’s premier circuit.
Overall, Joe Gibbs Racing had an exceptional 2025, with 13 victories, three of its four teams finishing in the top five in points and both Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe making the Championship 4 of the now-defunct playoff system.
Yet Gibbs and the No. 54 team contributed little to that success. Outside of winning the inaugural In-Season Challenge, 2025 was a struggle for the 23-year-old Gibbs, collecting just five top fives, 10 top 10s and the aforementioned lack of checkered flags. At 108 starts, Gibbs is the longest-tenured driver without a race win in JGR history, surpassing the previous mark of 78 starts by JJ Yeley.
On the other hand, there are also some reasons for optimism around the No. 54 bunch. Gibbs will have continuity at crew chief with the return of Tyler Allen for a second season. The return of The Chase as the championship format and the end of win-and-you’re-in could open the door for Gibbs to make his second career Cup postseason appearance, provided he improves on his average finish of 17.9 from 2025. If the No. 54 can avoid stumbling out of the gates like it did last season with six-straight finishes outside of the top 15, Gibbs could put — and keep — his name in Chase conversation.
Regardless of performance, job security will not be an issue for Gibbs. But if he continues to flounder while the rest of JGR flourishes, the criticism surrounding the No. 54 will only grow louder. -Andrew Stoddard
NASCAR Content Director at Frontstretch
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote “4 Burning Questions” for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
Entering his fifth year with Frontstretch, Luken Glover is the author of The Underdog House, shedding light on the motivation and performance of NASCAR’s dark horse teams as they strive to fight to the top. Additionally, Glover reports for the site at various events, and he contributes in the video editing department.
A 2023 graduate of the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is a middle school math and PE teacher, as well as a basketball coach. He is passionate about serving in his church, playing/coaching a wide variety of sports, and researching motorsports history.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She’s currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.
Brad joined Frontstretch.com in 2020 and contributes to the site’s 5 Points To Ponder column and other roles as needed. A graduate of the University of Georgia’s Henry W. Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, he has covered sports in some capacity for more than 20 years with coverage including local high school sports, college athletics and minor league hockey. Brad has received multiple awards for his work from the Georgia Press Association.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He’s the manager of the site’s FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site’s Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.