Did You Notice?: 5 NASCAR Midseason Storylines to Follow in 2026

Did You Notice?… Technically, the midpoint of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season has already passed us by. Chase Briscoe’s victory at Chicagoland Speedway last weekend was the official start of the season’s second half.

I say, that’s close enough. We’re in the midst of the summer, anyway, a time where fans lose count and potentially their focus on racing itself as family BBQs, vacations and a little thing called the World Cup take center stage.

But as we move through the heat of July, it’s not just the temperature rising inside the NASCAR garage. The pressure is on for a handful of championship contenders, drivers mulling their futures and even a manufacturer whose disappearing act up front has led to questions about its future development.

Let’s look at five storylines that bear watching as the sport looks ahead toward the 2026 title chase.

Denny Hamlin’s Championship: The Final Frontier

After last season’s heartbreak, Denny Hamlin won’t take anything for granted. He had the race win and title sitting in his hands before a late-race caution caused it all to fall apart.

No one would blame Hamlin if that broke his spirit. But here we are, 19 races in, and on paper he’s the championship favorite yet again. 2026 has to be the year for Hamlin. Right?

Right?

Here’s what we know for sure. Hamlin’s got four victories this year, including a streak of three straight, the first time in his Cup career he achieved that. He’s surged from 129 points back seven races ago to take a 44-point lead over Tyler Reddick in the standings. He’s on pace for the second-best average finish in his career (8.8) and a career high in laps led, currently leading the series with 854.

Hamlin is climbing this mountain on the heels of losing his father and his family’s home in the offseason, reaggravating a shoulder injury that will require offseason surgery and, oh, did I mention he’s age 45? Holding up the trophy, finally after 20+ years of trying this November would make him the oldest champion in NASCAR history.

Hamlin’s also made clear he’s only got two more chances to make this dream happen; all answers point, repeatedly, to him retiring from full-time competition at the conclusion of the 2027 season. Add in all the distractions of a last-year retirement tour and you have to think it’s now or never for the No. 11 team.

At this point, losing the title again after Hamlin’s year of crises feels like a cruel twist of fate that’s borderline unfair. Will a return to the 10-race format, one Hamlin has navigated before, finally get him over the hump?

Can 23XI Racing Go All The Way?

Tyler Reddick has already had a dream season, having captured the Daytona 500 and matching his career high for victories (three) just three races in. That perfect game of a start had him building what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in the regular season standings by early May.

Since then, Reddick and 23XI Racing have shown they’re human after all. Three finishes of 35th or worse in the last five races have handed the point lead to the team’s co-owner, Hamlin, on a silver platter. It’s an ugly mix of crashes and mechanical woes that would TKO a 10-race championship bid before it starts.

That consistency is, indeed, a question mark. Unlike Hamlin, 23XI has limited playoff experience: they reached the Championship 4 just once under the old format (Reddick, 2024). Even in a year where all Toyota teams appear to be on the same page, the endless resources and money of Joe Gibbs Racing leaves 23XI the underdog. Co-owner Michael Jordan may be an X factor emotionally, but the man can’t build the race cars.

And yet. The summer could also be an outlier. How many times did we see Jimmie Johnson start strong, race like he took the summer off and then beat the competition to a pulp once school’s back in session? Reddick and company could very well be playing around, testing different combinations while hiding those ace cards in their deck for the start of September.

We’ll see.

Will It Be Another Silly Season Snoozer?

Compared to IndyCar, where six-time champion Scott Dixon has set half the field in motion with his decision to leave Chip Ganassi Racing, NASCAR’s Silly Season train is stuck in park.

Once again, we’ve seen drivers holding expiring contracts extend with their current teams: Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher, even Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Stability has been the name of the game in a year we could have seen major movement.

A few smaller tweaks have come to pass instead: Josh Berry will be replaced by Jesse Love at the Wood Brothers for next season while Corey Heim replaces Riley Herbst full-time at 23XI. The tragedy of Kyle Busch’s death in May will cause at least a few dominoes to fall: Noah Gragson and Austin Hill appear to be the top contenders for that seat. Herbst will likely wind up at Legacy Motorsports in a new, third full-time car.

But for the train to really heat up, you need a move within the top-tier organizations: Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske and JGR. The best chance of that would be Alex Bowman, fighting through another year’s worth of injuries while considering his future at the No. 48.

Here’s the problem: the options aren’t great (Corey Day feels a year too soon) unless a generational talent like Connor Zilisch could be acquired from Trackhouse. 2027 feels like the play, when Zilisch and bigger names (perhaps even teammate Ross Chastain?) could be on the market.

Perhaps we’ll get a surprise in the fall and someone like an Austin Cindric breaks loose. If not, another snoozer would be a shame because limited free agency also limits the buzz surrounding the sport. Part of racing’s fast-paced energy can revolve around different driver and team combinations: keeping grids fresh in the age of the charter system is one of the long-term challenges facing the sport.

Ford’s Shrinking Footprint

19 races in, the manufacturer who’s won three of the last four Cup championships has only three drivers eligible for this year’s 10-race Chase. Ford’s been flailing, earning just one victory (Ryan Blaney at Phoenix Raceway) while veteran stars Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski have fallen flat.

It’s a notable dropoff, in line with the Blue Oval crowd quietly scaling back to just 10 full-time cars in 2026 (both Rick Ware Racing and the Haas Factory Team switched to Chevrolet). You have to go back a dozen years, to 2014 to find the last time the Ford roster was that small: Penske was just a two-car team and David Gilliland, not son Todd, was driving for Front Row Motorsports.

Here’s the difference between now and then: in 2014, Ford was still dipping its toes in both O’Reilly and Truck series competition. Keselowski ran his own teams back then in Trucks, using Ford backing, while Penske, Roush and even Richard Petty invested money into O’Reilly.

This time around, the farm system is limited solely to Trucks: most O’Reilly races this season have run without a single Ford on the grid. While they have a couple of strong prospects there (Layne Riggs, Chandler Smith) is a promotion from Trucks to Cup the right move for Ford when it comes to development? The smaller schedule and different type of car have the jump feeling like a move from double-A ball to the major leagues.

So, will Ford keep their circle small? And what happens if RAM goes after either of their two teams with a previous Dodge relationship (RFK Racing and Penske, both of whom rigorously deny any interest?) It feels like, at some point, a reinvestment in more teams and talent will be a necessity, money the Blue Ovals have never been hesitant to spend.

The future will be fascinating; and whatever happens, their summer slump bears watching. Unlike the old format, Ford can’t just wake up for a few select races in the fall and steal the trophy from under everyone’s nose in the finale. Winning this one requires a level of consistency they’re not hitting as of yet.

Will Last Year’s Championship 4 Wake Up Before It’s Too Late?

While Hamlin’s cruising at the top of the standings, it’s notable the other trio of Championship 4 contenders from 2025 have just one win 19 races into the year. That came Sunday (July 5) at Chicagoland, Briscoe outlasting Christopher Bell to climb back to victory lane and (likely) solidify his spot in the postseason.

For Briscoe, that puts to bed a horror story of a February/March in which he started the year with three finishes of 36th or worse in the first four races. It’s been a long, hard slog to just get back into the range of respectability.

William Byron has been winless, too, leading a paltry 42 laps in the first half of the year before a season-high 94 laps led at Chicagoland. Teammate and reigning Cup champion Kyle Larson now has a winless streak that’s gone over a year; he, too, showed signs of life in Illinois, leading 23 laps before a midrace spin wrecked his chances.

That trio still has seven races to right the ship and climb the standings: the analysts with the number flow charts say you need to be top-five-ish, maybe top-three-ish in the regular season points in order to have a shot at this title.

That’s not where any of these three are sitting… yet. But if there’s a wild card in waiting to challenge Hamlin and Reddick down the stretch, I’d expect that driver to come from here.

Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles