The 2025 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. 2, and the 67th running of the Daytona 500 is less than three weeks away.
With a wide array of driver and team changes from the offseason alongside more minor personnel tweaks — or even a few lineups that stayed exactly the same — there’s a lot to discuss as the Cup Series moves into the fourth season of the Next Gen era.
For 2025, 19 members of Frontstretch staff voted on a top-30 ranking, taking into account each driver’s 2024 season as well as their outlook for 2025. A first-place vote garnered 30 points for a driver. A second-place vote garnered 29 points, all the way down to a 30th-place vote that netted one point.
Below is where we landed. Check out Nos. 30-21 using the link below and check back tomorrow (Jan. 29) for the top 10.
20. Shane van Gisbergen
Score: 210
Before the 2023 season, not many NASCAR fans in the states were familiar with Shane van Gisbergen. Now, he is one of the most recognizable names in the sport. He won in his Cup Series debut at the Chicago Street Course in 2023, then won three more road courses in the 2024 Xfinity Series season en route to a 12th-place finish in the standings. Now he’s in Cup as a rookie, driving the No. 88 for Trackhouse Racing.
Despite already being a Cup winner, 2025 will present its challenges for van Gisbergen on the ovals. He won’t be expected to win races at Richmond Raceway or Texas Motor Speedway, for example. Finishes outside the top 20 at most ovals are a major possibility, but it is not something to be alarmed about.
He has five pristine chances to win his way into the playoffs, as he immediately becomes a favorite, if not the favorite, at all five road courses in the regular season. Pencil him down to fight for the win at Mexico City. He beat the field straight up in similar circumstances at Chicago, where everyone in the field was racing at the track for the first time. He was also one Chris Buescher bump-and-run away from winning at Watkins Glen International last September.
Getting a road course win will undoubtedly be his, and Trackhouse’s, highest priority — and he has a great chance of making it happen. -Kevin Nix
19. Austin Cindric
Score: 217
With all of Team Penske’s recent success, Austin Cindric has almost become the forgotten third driver of the organization. Yes, he won at World Wide Technology Raceway and advanced to the Round of 12 of the playoffs last year. However, when compared to teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, who have combined for the past three Cup championships in the same equipment, Cindric’s resume does not measure up.
On the other hand, now entering his fourth full-time Cup season, Cindric has shown some signs of progress. His 11th-place points finish in 2024 was the best of his Cup career, and the 256 laps led is more than double the total of his first two Cup campaigns combined.
Cindric returns in 2025 to a Penske No. 2 team that possesses something many teams up and down the Cup garage lack: stability. He will get to work with crew chief Brian Wilson for the second straight season, and the No. 2 will also have the same pit crew and sponsors as 2024.
There are several realistic paths back to the playoffs for Cindric. For one, he has shown significant prowess on road courses, as nine of his 22 career Cup top 10s have come on that type of track. There are five road courses on the 2025 regular season slate, which means five chances to clinch a playoff berth with a road course win. Cindric is also not too shabby on superspeedway with seven top 10s, including his victory in the 2022 Daytona 500.
He could also display the consistency to simply make it in on points. Will 2025 be Cindric’s breakthrough season where he becomes a serious championship contender, or will he continue to dwell in the middle of the pack? –Andrew Stoddard
18. Daniel Suarez
Score: 232
Fractions of seconds often make a big difference in motorsports, but it is still incredible to think how Daniel Suarez’s 2024 season hinged on .003 seconds. That was his margin of victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he captured the checkered flag in a thrilling, three-wide finish last February.
The win was critical for getting Suarez into the postseason, where he was the lone driver to represent Trackhouse Racing. The No. 99 team battled its way into the second round but never found the speed needed to advance any further. It was not a bad year for Suarez, who broke a lengthy winless drought and returned to the playoffs. Yet there were many weeks where he and his team struggled to be competitive.
This year, Suarez gets a second season with crew chief Matt Swiderski and another chance to take Trackhouse to victory lane. After bouncing around to several Cup Series organizations early in his career, Suarez has found a home at Trackhouse, where he has been racing since the team debuted in 2021. But Justin Marks’ team is no longer a single-car operation, and it has not recaptured the speed that its cars often flashed during the 2022 season. The No. 99 team even struggled at road courses last year, where Suarez is typically strong.
As one of three full-time Trackhouse drivers in 2025, Suarez needs to get his road course mojo back and find the intermediate speed he’s been lacking. A season defined by frequent strong performances would be most helpful for keeping him in the Trackhouse stable. -Bryan Gable
17. Carson Hocevar
Score: 247
After a Championship 4 appearance and a quartet of wins in his 2023 Craftsman Truck Series campaign, Carson Hocevar got the call to take over the No. 77 Cup car for Spire Motorsports in 2024. His Cup Series potential was strengthened by nine races behind the wheel of a premier series car (one for Spire and eight for Legacy Motor Club) that same 2023 season as a fill-in driver. Despite not finishing in the top 10 in those races, he put together some impressive runs, some of which were derailed by bad luck.
A year later, he has the 2024 Cup Series Rookie of the Year title under his belt and six top 10 finishes to his name. His ’24 season ended with an average start of 20.1, an average finish of 18.3 and a final result of 21st in points — pretty impressive for his first year of full-time driving. He logged top-10 finishes at an array of track types, including mile-and-a-halfs, a road course, two tracks a mile or under in length and at Michigan, which sprawls across two miles of racing surface. It’s also worth noting that he finished on the lead lap in 27 of the 36 races — a number that was both significantly more than either of his teammates in 2024 and more than any full-time Spire pilot in the team’s history.
Though some in the garage might say the 21-year-old has some maturing to do — particularly after spinning Harrison Burton under caution at Nashville Superspeedway last year — Hocevar was quietly consistent throughout the season, especially after a slightly more controversial 2023. He gains an experienced teammate in Michael McDowell for 2025, and Spire is making all the right moves to be competitive as Hocevar enters year two in the Cup Series. -Adam Cheek
16. Kyle Busch
Score: 281
Where to even begin? The 2024 season was statistically one of Kyle Busch’s worst since his rookie season in 2005. Busch began the 2024 season as the third-place driver in the now-iconic three-wide photo finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway with Blaney and Suarez. Since losing out on that victory, Busch couldn’t buy himself a win if he tried. Every time he was in position for a win or even a top five, some stroke of bad luck or misfortune befell his No. 8 and took him out of contention — notable examples include Nashville Superspeedway, the Brickyard 400 and the fall race at Kansas Speedway.
Busch failed to reach victory lane for the first time in his full-time Cup Series career, while his teammate Austin Dillon, despite the circumstances of how he got it, was able to win a race on speed. That, plus a 20th-place points finish has left fans wondering where that puts him for 2025. Has he lost his touch? Is there a realistic possibility we may never see “Wild Thing” in victory lane again?
No — Kyle freaking Busch has not lost his edge. He was still able to notch two victories in the Truck Series, and as previously mentioned, he had several opportunities to win but couldn’t quite seal the deal. Every driver has an off-year, and 2024 may have been that for Busch. As for the “washed” allegations? Let’s not rush to those yet. Even if 2025 doesn’t turn out to be the best year for the Las Vegas native, it’s hard to count Busch out in any circumstance. After all, he is still Rowdy. –Anthony Damcott
15. Bubba Wallace
Score: 297
Bubba Wallace’s upside was on display again last year, as he continues his upward trajectory entering 2025. Wallace backed up a career year in 2023 with another one in 2024, scoring career highs in top fives, top 10s, and average finish.
Yet the net gain of his results was met with missed opportunities, as Wallace failed to make the playoffs for the third time in four seasons with 23XI Racing and is now sitting on a two-year winless streak. His points position wasn’t necessarily his downfall, as he sat inside the top 15 for the majority of the year. Rather, it was the large influx of surprise winners that raised the cut line and pushed him out of the 16-driver postseason.
Speed has certainly not been the origin of the No. 23 team’s woes. Instead, errors in execution hampered the team’s ability to put a full race together. Pit road mistakes, driver errors, ill-time adjustments, or race fall-off saw Wallace fade from front-running contention in multiple events.
That vulnerability is something 23XI is hoping will be solved by a new face atop the pit box, as the team tapped former NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series crew chief, Charles Denike, to lead the No. 23 team, while Bootie Barker moves into a competition leadership role. Denike won eight Truck races in two seasons with Christian Eckes, and he should bring a fresh new approach for Wallace to tackle.
It has not been a heavily confronted topic, but the pressure has to be on the 31-year-old. While Wallace was absent from postseason competition and held winless for the second consecutive season, his 23XI teammate, Tyler Reddick, earned three wins in 2024, won the regular season title, and earned the team’s first Championship 4 appearance.
Time truly flies by, and Wallace is already entering his eighth season of Cup competition. This season has to be a prove-it year, with a win and a postseason run standing as tangible goals. If not, the pressure will only heat up for a seat that many anticipated would be safe for the foreseeable future. -Luken Glover
14. Ty Gibbs
Score: 342
Sitting second in points after the first six races of the 2024 season, it looked like Ty Gibbs was poised to win his first Cup race and even serve as a dark horse championship contender.
But while he scored eight top fives, led more than 400 laps and qualified for the postseason, Gibbs wasn’t able to reach the heights it looked like he was capable of at the start of the year. His first Cup win will have to wait until 2025, and he had a brutal end to 2024 with five consecutive finishes of 30th or worse, complete with a lap 1 exit in the finale at Phoenix Raceway.
That said, the fact that he hasn’t won in Cup after two years with Joe Gibbs Racing after tearing up the ARCA and Xfinity Series ranks shouldn’t be a concern. The era of “super rookies” that immediately perform ended more than a decade ago, and with how different the Next Gen car is to the Xfinity car, anyone making the jump will have to navigate a steep learning curve.
The important thing is that Gibbs showed improvement from his rookie season, as he made gains in every major statistical category for year two. JGR should improve across the board in 2025 with Chris Gabehart as the new competition director, and if Gibbs can build on the flashes of brilliance he showed last season, that first win will come sooner rather than later. –Stephen Stumpf
13. Brad Keselowski
Score: 357
Brad Keselowski’s switch to RFK Racing paid off in his third year as co-owner, as he returned to victory lane for the first time since 2021 with a win at Darlington Raceway in May.
He also earned nine top fives last season, two more than he had in 2023. Four of the nine top fives were second-place finishes, with his last runner-up finish coming at Talladega in October. However, he obtained two fewer top 10s from 2023, and he finished 13th in the standings after placing eighth in ’23.
Looking ahead, RFK has added a third full-time entry with Ryan Preece at the wheel of the No. 60. It’ll be interesting to see how this will affect the organization and how resources will be allocated to each team. Will their speed be affected this year? The Duels at Daytona International Speedway will be key to see how they might perform and work together in the draft this season.
Plus, Keselowski isn’t getting any younger. At 40 years old, how much longer can he compete at such a high level? Only time will tell, but you can guarantee he’ll be in contention at Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, and Darlington is likely a sure bet as well. If he can secure another win, his playoff run will be one to watch with the additions of WWT Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the postseason. –Joy Tomlinson
12. Ross Chastain
Score: 370
Although Ross Chastain missed out on making the NASCAR playoffs for the first time as a driver for Trackhouse, the watermelon man finished the season with momentum after a win at Kansas Speedway in September.
He scored as many top 10s as he did in 2023 with 14, but he dropped from winning two races as he did in 2023 to just one win last season along with six top fives. He was also in position to win or finish well at Texas and Nashville before crashing out in overtime in both.
With how competitive and, at times, unpredictable a new winner emerges during the regular season, the Alva, Fla., native will need to either find a win or show incredible consistency in the first 26 races of 2025.
Going into his fifth full-time season, Chastain will have an extra teammate to lean on as Shane van Gisbergen takes on his first full-time season in the Cup Series. Chastain and the No. 1 team also enjoy team stability, as Phil Surgen will be atop his pit box for the fourth consecutive season.
Driving the flagship Busch No. 1 car for Trackhouse, Chastain looks poised to lead the team back to the front of the field in 2025. But in order for that to happen, Chastain and his team will have to be firing on all cylinders to start the season and continue the momentum into the playoffs. -Wyatt Watson
11. Chase Briscoe
Score: 372
When Martin Truex Jr. announced his retirement from full-time racing at the end of the 2024 season, many looked to the JGR drivers in the lower ranks and speculated which one would be the new heir to the No. 19 car.
However, unlike what he has done in the past, Coach Gibbs didn’t select one of his rising talents for promotion. This time, he chose already-proven NASCAR Cup Series talent Chase Briscoe, and it may have been the best decision he could have made.
The 30-year-old Hoosier is entering his fifth full-time Cup season after spending the previous four with the now defunct SHR. While there, he amassed two race wins including the final victory for the team at last year’s Southern 500 at Darlington.
In other words? Unlike any 20-something-year-old rising talent being developed by Toyota in the lower series, Gibbs selected a proven winner and a mature veteran driver to put into the No. 19. Briscoe won’t need a few years to get the hang of the Next Gen car; he already has.
Now finally paired with a high-end Cup team with good equipment and personnel, Briscoe now has no obstructions to being a successful Cup regular.
However, it also means he has no more excuses.
Driving for a top team will mean additional pressure to perform; pressure he didn’t have as much of during his time at SHR. However, Briscoe is used to being successful. Remember, this is the same guy that won nine NASCAR Xfinity Series races in 2020, and while expecting the same kind of results in Cup is surely unrealistic, anticipating at least a Round of 12 playoff berth is not. -Dalton Hopkins
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.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loudcolumn, co-host of the Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
Wyatt Watson has followed NASCAR closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretchas a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt writes breaking NASCAR news and contributes to columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monster. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media and serves as an at-track reporter, collecting exclusive content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on Twitter @WyattGametime
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.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.
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.
Kevin Nix has been with Frontstretch since February 2023. Hailing from Gilbert, Arizona, his dream is to be in the NASCAR media sphere full-time. He is a video assistant, working on the back end to streamline video and audio quality of all at-track interviews. Nix also writes about news every Monday for the site.
Nix graduated with a Master's Degree in Sports Journalism from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, Arizona. He also has bachelor's degrees in Communications and Political Science. In his downtime, he likes to read, play video games and take walks in the Arizona weather - when it's not too hot.
Luken Glover joined the Frontstretch team in 2020 as a contributor, furthering a love for racing that traces back to his earliest memories. Glover inherited his passion for racing from his grandfather, who used to help former NASCAR team owner Junie Donlavey in his Richmond, Va. garage. A 2023 graduate from the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is the author of "The Underdog House," contributes to commentary pieces, and does occasional at-track reporting. Additionally, Glover enjoys working in ministry, coaching basketball, playing sports, and karting.
Me thinks Rick Hendricks wrote you a check. Not as big as the one he wrote Clinton for the pardon or the Doc for the phony luekemia diagnosis but a check none the less