2026 NASCAR Preseason Power Rankings: Nos. 10-1

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.

Without further ado, here are Frontstretch‘s top 10 drivers entering the 2026 season. Click here for Nos. 30-21 and here for Nos. 20-11.

10. Ross Chastain

Points: 316

After the Hail Melon at Martinsville Speedway in 2022 — not to mention the season that came before it —  Ross Chastain looked destined to be a star in the Cup Series. Three seasons later, he’s not shining all that bright compared to the crop of drivers in his orbit. 

Chastain was far from awful in 2025, but he was a non-factor more often than not. His last-to-first performance at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was one of the best achievements by any driver last season, but it’s all Chastain had to hang his hat on with just one more top five the rest of the year. 

Chastain’s four top fives, 12 top 10s, average finish of 15.8 and 83 laps led were all his worst numbers since joining Trackhouse Racing. Once the talk of the garage for his aggressive-yet-exciting style, he’s now flying under the radar within his own team after Shane van Gisbergen’s record-setting rookie season and the anticipation of young phenom Zilisch’s first campaign in the Cup Series. 

Trackhouse made a big change to the No. 1 in hopes of helping Chastain recapture the success he found in 2022. Brandon McSwain, a former engineer for the No. 24 at Hendrick Motorsports, will be a crew chief for the first time in his career with Chastain in 2026. The change could be the jolt needed for a driver who’s been a jack of all trades with wins on intermediates, superspeedways and even road courses.

The bare minimum Chastain and McSwain should accomplish is a playoff berth. What they should strive for is for Chastain and co. to do something he hasn’t done much in his career: Show up to a track and be the dominant team of the weekend. Do that a few times? You might see Chastain as a title favorite come The Chase. -James Krause

9. Joey Logano

Points: 327

It’s an even year, and you know what that means. Much like the San Francisco Giants of the early-to-mid-2010s, Joey Logano has a chance to win his fourth Cup championship and third in five years.

But he’ll have a rough road ahead of him, as The Chase is back, meaning no more win and you’re in. It likely won’t be enough to just win four races like he did in 2022 and 2024; he’ll need to be more consistent and at least earn stage points.

One interesting statistic from the past couple years: although the number of wins was different (four in 2024 and one in 2025), he still earned seven top fives and 13 top 10s. However, Logano’s average finish has remained in the mid-teens the past two years: 17.1 in 2024 and 15.3 last season.

The Connecticut native’s lone victory came at Texas Motor Speedway last year. Though Logano had some ups and downs, he came alive in the final 10 races, scoring four top fives and six top 10s. This included an eighth at Martinsville Speedway and a fourth at Phoenix Raceway.

In fact, he has four wins at that 1-mile track, winning two championships there in 2022 and 2024.

The 35-year-old should perform well on the short tracks as well as some intermediates like Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Logano has four victories there and sports a 9.6 average finish. And though it’s a pretty small sample size, he has a 3.6 average finish at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, including a win in 2022.

But even if he can grab four trophies again, The Chase will make it that much harder to bring home the title at the end of the year. -Joy Tomlinson

8. Tyler Reddick

Points: 350

In most other worlds, Tyler Reddick probably would’ve landed in this ranking’s top five … with the caveat that the No. 45 team didn’t take a step back in 2025. His 2024 campaign saw Reddick really come into his own with 23XI Racing, scoring three wins, 12 top fives, 21 top 10s and the regular-season championship — among them his first win in a Jordan-branded car at Talladega Superspeedway and his all-timer, hammer-down clutch win at Homestead-Miami Speedway to advance to the Championship 4.

All ingredients in a recipe for a dominant 2025, right? Meh. While he was still consistent, averaging top-15 qualifying and finishing results, his top fives were in the single digits, his fewest since 2021, and his top 10s dropped to 14. What’s more notable was the big zero in the win column. Meanwhile, teammate Bubba Wallace grabbed a win and equaled Reddick’s number of top 10s.

None of this is to say the team’s completely fallen off the wagon, especially since it finished top 10 in points, but it’s got some work to do. Reddick and Wallace are both among the upper echelon of NASCAR’s full-time drivers, and while it might benefit the team to finally commit to Corey Heim in the third car performance-wise, the Nos. 45 and 23 are the Toyota stable’s flagship cars right now and 2026 should be looked at as a rebound year.

Now, with the distraction of the lawsuit out of the way, the team can lock in on performance even more. Maybe this is the year it finally wins Darlington after coming close several times, grabs another victory at Circuit of the Americas or even a Daytona 500. Reddick is arguably one of the most versatile drivers out there, and one of the most dangerous on mile-and-a-halfs; with the rumored switch back to the Charlotte Motor Speedway oval for the playoffs and with Homestead closing out the season, those tracks might play into the No. 45 being a force to reckon with for the title. -Adam Cheek

7. Chase Elliott

Points: 391

Last year’s performance was very much needed for Chase Elliott.

Coming off 2024 when he broke the longest winless streak of his career with a win at Texas Motor Speedway, 2025 started out great with a dominant win at the inaugural Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium decked out in the all-white Napa No. 9 Chevy.

However, what looked like a promising start turned into the second-longest winless streak of his career, which was broken with an emotional victory at home track EchoPark Speedway in the summer.

Tacking on an out-of-nowhere win at Kansas Speedway in the last year of the playoffs, the Dawsonville, Ga., native secured his first multiyear season since his dominant 2022 season to open the Next Gen era.

Elliott looks to be crawling closer back to form, but in order to establish himself, he will have to rise above two teammates at HMS in Kyle Larson and William Byron who both fought for the championship last season.

Alan Gustafson, as always, will make the calls for Elliott, teaming up with him in all 11 of his full-time seasons with HMS. While criticisms have persisted of Gustafson being on top of the pit box for Elliott, the winning formula still persists for the two, proven by the consistency and two wins of last year.

However, despite the two wins, Elliott only finished eighth in points and didn’t reach the Championship 4 for three years in a row. But in a year when there is far more emphasis on putting together solid, consistent results in the final 10 races, Elliott can be poised for a top-five finish in points. -Wyatt Watson

6. Christopher Bell

Points: 419

Arguably no driver will benefit more from the return of The Chase than Christopher Bell. He was eliminated from the Championship 4 in the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway the last two seasons, but he shined in the playoffs nonetheless by posting average finishes of 7.1 and 7.8 in the final 10 races of 2024 and 2025, respectively.

It’s par for the course for Bell, who has quietly become one of the best drivers in the Cup field at avoiding trouble. He hasn’t recorded a DNF on a non-superspeedway since 2024, and he sports a series-leading average finish of 10th in his last 48 starts.

That exceptional display of consistency wasn’t enough for him to make the Championship 4 the past two years, but it will make him one of the odds-on favorites for the title if he is able to replicate that level of performance in the final 10 races of 2026.

But for all the optimism that Bell and the No. 20 team have entering NASCAR’s new era, there are some concerns from 2025 that need to be addressed. The elephant in the room is that he led a measly 282 laps last year, his lowest total in a season since 2021 and a drastic decrease from the 1,145 he paced in 2024. It didn’t necessarily hurt Bell in the win column as he won four races last year, but he fizzled out with just one victory after March when it looked like he would be the driver to beat following his three-straight wins after the Daytona 500.

Wins are also worth an additional 15 points this season, so it is paramount for Bell and the No. 20 team to recapture weekly race-winning speed alongside consistency. All the pieces are there for Bell to win his first title come November, now it’s just a matter of execution. -Stephen Stumpf

5. Chase Briscoe

Points: 420

Chase Briscoe enters 2026 coming off a Championship 4 appearance in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing. The early parts of 2025 involved some struggles with several finishes outside the top 25. Once Briscoe broke through at Pocono Raceway, the floodgates opened. The veteran bagged runner-up finishes in three of the next four races and manufactured a season-high seven poles.

As crunch time came during the playoffs, Briscoe continued his great run of races. He dominated the Southern 500, leading over 300 laps enroute to another victory. It was clear he was on a heater toward the end of 2025, culminating in that Talladega win and Phoenix appearance.

The question becomes: what version of Briscoe hits the ground running in Daytona International Speedway? Three wins, 15 top fives and an average finish of 12.7 is nothing to scoff at, especially as he and crew chief James Small have seemingly clicked for the better. 

A top-five ranking feels fair if Briscoe performs to the standard he illustrated in the back half of last season. JGR cars are without a doubt among the best in the field, and if Briscoe has made the adjustment to that standard, there should be no issues with him being a championship contender. There are arguments for why Bell, Elliott and Reddick can be above Briscoe, but his ability to perform on a big stage in one of his first serious go-rounds in the Cup Series is something that’s noteworthy. -Thomas Dunn

4. William Byron

Points: 429

Byron is poised to have another strong showing in 2026, and, coming off a third straight Championship 4 appearance, figures to be in the mix for the title once again.

Fresh off of winning back-to-back Daytona 500 victories, along with additional wins at Iowa Speedway and Martinsville, Byron has shown the capability of winning no matter what track the Cup Series competes at. Byron’s 2025 season saw him win his first regular-season championship as a Cup driver, along with leading 1,330 laps throughout the course of the year.

Despite leading over 1,000 laps, there were several instances where Byron dominated races but circumstances prevented him from winning more races. The driver of the famed No. 24 had a fair share of adversity in the playoffs, and he came in clutch with a must-win victory at Martinsville to make the Championship 4.

Despite making it to Phoenix with a chance at the title, Byron finished fourth in the final standings after a tire failure in the closing laps. He arguably is just a step behind Hendrick teammate Larson, who’s fresh off his second championship, in terms of overall performance. At times last year, Byron had stretches when he was a non-factor before showing up at the top of the leaderboard a couple races later.

Going into the 2026 season, Byron must prove that he can contend for wins on a weekly basis and not have as many off-weekends to be a true championship contender. -Christopher Hansen

3. Ryan Blaney

Points: 442

Larson may have won the 2025 championship, Denny Hamlin may have had it won until a late caution and foiled pit strategy, and Byron may have been the regular-season champion, but the fastest driver and team of the season was arguably none of these three.

That could be said for Blaney and his No. 12 Team Penske team. Though the 2023 Cup champion came up one spot short of winning his way into the Championship 4, Blaney continued his recent pattern of year-over-year progression, setting several career highs statistically.

Most notably among his numbers were the four checkered flags he earned, including a dramatic last-turn pass to win the season finale at Phoenix. Those victories also displayed Blaney’s growing versatility, as three of his wins came at tracks he had yet to conquer. 

Blaney also spent more time in front than ever, pacing the field for 852 laps. That statistic further cements the dynamic duo that Blaney and crew chief Jonathan Hassler have formed together, a force that looks ready to thrive once again in 2026. 

There will be two key areas that contribute to Blaney’s success rate in 2026. One is to continue to bring speed to the racetrack, something the No. 12 team did nearly every week last season. Blaney ranked in the top five in multiple speed categories. 

The other factor is to limit DNFs. Blaney suffered eight premature endings in 2025, though those were primarily out of his control. Yet even with the frustrating results, Blaney still finished second in the regular-season standings, fueled by six-consecutive top 10s to close out the regular season. 

Entering 2026 as a new father, Blaney has turned into a steady, seasoned veteran as one of the sport’s star drivers and Penske’s top threat. And if the trend continues with his annual improvement, the sky’s the limit for Blaney in his pursuit of a second title. -Luken Glover

2. Denny Hamlin

Points: 450

Throughout this entire list, you’ve read speculation of how drivers may fare in 2026 based on things like their statistics, historical examples and overall talent. 

Hamlin may be the only driver on this list where his season is dependent on his emotions.

To say Hamlin’s winter offseason has been eventful is an understatement. Really, it’s been downright life-changing. In the final race of 2025, Hamlin underwent what was probably the most heartbreaking championship loss in NASCAR history after a caution with three laps to go took him out of the lead and out of contention to finally win a first title. Only one month later, Hamlin was at the forefront of the NASCAR trial of the century when his lawsuit against NASCAR was finally settled in the teams’ favor. 

But most tragically for Hamlin was the loss of his father and the hospitalization of his mother in a house fire that occurred only a few weeks after the trial. 

With all of the above in regard, some speculated Hamlin’s imminent retirement from racing, and with good reason. Asking anybody to go race another 38 weeks after all of that would be too much for some.  

But not for Hamlin. He’s back for more. 

That might work out for him. With the elimination of the playoff format in favor of the more consistency-rewarding Chase, this might be Hamlin’s best chance at a championship he’s had in a long time. If the 45-year-old can have another year like he did in 2025, when he won a season-high six races, he’ll be there at the end again — and this time, a late-race caution is far less likely to hand him another heartbreak. 

The question is, can he put the events of the last three months aside and put together one last run at the title? -Dalton Hopkins

1. Kyle Larson

Points: 462

With consistency becoming a major factor for 2026 and beyond, Larson has the opportunity to realistically establish himself on the same echelon as Jimmie Johnson so long as he continues championship form.

Without the distraction of the Indianapolis 500-Coke 600 double to disrupt any momentum, Larson can lock in and be engaged for the full season rather than lose his stride during the summer stretch much like last year, and that’s can be dangerous for the championship aspirations for the rest of the field.

The controversy of last year’s championship decider between himself, Hamlin and Byron can be wiped away thanks to the much-needed points change.

Despite that, Larson, with his strong start to 2025, did score the most points this season thanks to Byron’s cut tire at Phoenix, and he nabbed three dominant wins at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway and Homestead, the site of this year’s season finale. In addition, all three are tracks that will host Chase races this season.

With such high aspirations, Larson has the chance great odds to become the 11th different driver to capture back-to-back titles and the seventh to score three championships.

Larson enters 2026 with a 24-race winless streak to his name, his longest with Hendrick Motorsports, but he was still able to get the job done in the previous format as well as the current format if it would have been implemented last season. HMS is very familiar with finding success in the Chase format and can use the consistency of Larson to reach the mountaintop once again in 2026.

Crew chief Cliff Daniels will again be on the pit box to call the important shots. After making the call for four tires in last year’s finale, Daniels can shift focus to maintaining great speed through the whole of the season and especially during The Chase to help the Elk Grove, Calif., native to another title.

But while Larson enters the 2026 season on top, he’ll have his work cut out to stay there. Winning paying out 55 points, so Larson very much needs to get back to his old winning form in time for The Chase, or else the competition will catch him. -Watson