A new NASCAR season is upon us, and later tonight we will know the starting grid for the season-opening Daytona 500, and so will conclude an offseason that saw a great number of changes away from the racetrack.
Permanent charters, a championship format change and slight changes to horsepower and aero packages all sprung from a busy winter, the most notable of which is the championship format reverting to something previously used. We haven't even mentioned the changes to the schedule. Mexico City, Chicago and the Charlotte roval are gone with a temporary race on Naval Base Coronado use outside San Diego scheduled for June. Chicagoland Speedway returns after a six-year hiatus. A second oval race is returning to Charlotte Motor Speedway. Meanwhile, the All-Star Race moves to Dover International Speedway with North Wilkesboro set to host a championship race for the first time in nearly 30 years.
Gone are the three-race rounds with eliminations and returning is a ten-race aggregate to decide the champion with 16 drivers competing for the title after the regular season concludes. The 16 drivers will be based on points. Win-and-in is gone. To compete for a championship, a driver must be in the top 16 of the championship after the first 26 races.
The championship change shakes up the identity of the Cup Series and it alters how races and the entire season are approached. A driver 27th in the championship is not one victory away from a playoff spot. It is no longer wide open until the very last lap of the regular season. Simultaneously, a victory is not a golden ticket assuring a team a better pay day and a chance to be racing for something special as summer turns to autumn.
With these changes, come a lot of questions ahead of the 2026 season.
How will the season look different?
Victories do not carry the same weight they once did because a driver cannot go from the bottom to the top in a blink. If a driver is 21st in the championship, one victory will not turn him into a championship-eligible driver. To make the postseason, he will need to still get to 16th. A victory will be a consolation prize, one that will be cherished, but it does not outshine the true form over an entire season.
With a clear target of making the top 16 to make the playoffs, it should raise the bar of competition. There will be greater incentive to get the most out of every race. A team cannot wait for the drafting tracks or the road courses to try and steal a victory. Making the playoffs will require decent form across all disciplines. Some teams are going to struggle, but a great number of teams will be shooting for more each week to get as many points as possible, and points matter more. They are the only thing that matters to making the playoffs.
That should change how races are run, especially since stage points still exist. Teams would previously decline stage points in strategy decisions to race for the victory. At certain tracks or in certain circumstances, teams would make a pit before a stage break from a top position only to be back at the front after the stage break because the rest of the field would stop and that team would inherit the lead. However, is turning down ten points for a potential stage victory worth it in this system? Points determine the playoff drivers, not victories. Those ten points go further than a race victory on its own. However, combined with a race victory, stage points will lift the top teams.
The base points total for first position increased to 55 points. Winning both stages and the race could earn a team 75 points, 76 points if that team also scores fastest lap. A victory has never been worth more. There is a good chance a race winner could earn more than double what the second-place finisher earns in some races. Even if a driver scores 75 points, the most a second-place finisher can earn is 54 points (35 points for second, 18 points for finishing second in both states and a point for fastest lap). Second is only worth 72% of a victory. Under the previous points system, second-place could be worth as much as 93.333% of a victory.
For well over a decade, NASCAR said it emphasized winning races but had systems where proportionately, winning was still not great enough and second on down was worth too much. Now it has a system where consistently winning races will separate those teams from the rest of the field.
Who does this change benefit?
It benefits consistent drivers. Some of the top drivers will be fine. Kyle Larson, William Byron, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano will all still be where they usually are. The cleanest of those drivers will excel the most. They will not have a pair of bad races in October crush their championship hopes because of the system.
There is still a reset after 26 races, and some drivers will lose an advantage while others will get a boost. The door will be open for someone else to rise, but instead of only needing strategic victories to be champion, a driver must be decent over ten races.
Previously, a victory was all that mattered. If a driver won the first race in a round, he could finish last in the next two and it didn't change a thing. That is no longer the case. A victory cannot hide bipolar results. If a team is finishing outside the top twenty on a regular basis that will speak louder than a victory or two in the season.
Who is in for a greater challenge?
I would say about a third of the grid had their playoff hopes squashed before the calendar even flipped to February. Everyone has the same target to shoot for, but 16th is quite out of reach for a fair number of teams.
In the last four seasons, the best championship finish for a Legacy Motor Club driver is 19th. The best of three Front Row Motorsports drivers in 2025 was 27th in the championship. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. has finished outside the top twenty in the championship in six of the last seven seasons. In the other season, he was 16th because he won the Daytona 500 and qualified for the playoffs. Michael McDowell has never finished in the top twenty of the championship in a season where he did not win a race. Tyler Dillon's season is hopeless before it even begins.
Rick Ware Racing and Haas Factory Team are not going to stumble into a playoff spot thanks to a victory. Even Richard Childress Racing is an outside shot for the top 16.
There are drivers and teams that are just not going to be good enough to make the top 16, and nothing is going to change that over the course of the season. It is over before it has even begun.
There will be drivers who need to be better.
Shane van Gisbergen was the first driver to come to mind when the format change was announced. One road course victory will not secure a playoff spot, but van Gisbergen's five victories would have been enough to make the playoffs last year had this system been introduced in 2025.
That shows how much dominating races matters, but it also shows how much it will take for the likes of van Gisbergen to make it. There are also fewer road course races this season and there are no road course races in the final half of the season. Sonoma is the 18th race and that is when we will know truly how great van Gisbergen's postseason hopes are. It is unlikely he can bank on four victories getting him through, but that means he must improve and get his average finish of 21st down to something around 16th or 17th and combined with a pair of victories or a trio of victories, it could be enough to get him into the top 16.
The Rich Get Richer
The top teams are still going to be at the top. We already saw that last season. Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing split the top four drivers in the championship and took six of the top eight with Team Penske's Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney taking the other two spots.
While the elimination formats combined with the current generation of car allowed for other teams to be in the mix for race victories and even contend for championships, we have been seeing NASCAR's biggest teams pull away. Introduce a system that rewards consistency more while also increasing what a race victory pays out, and the teams at the top are going to move further away from the rest of the field.
There is still a chance 23XI Racing with Tyler Reddick can be competitive and break into the top group. Trackhouse or RFK Racing can still have good seasons and make championship runs, but it will require true speed and not fortunately timed results to be a threat deep into the season.
Are the postseason drivers already set?
Four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and three Team Penske Fords account for 11 drivers. If they all make the playoffs, that leaves little room for others.
However, Joe Gibbs Racing has seen Ty Gibbs fail to make the playoffs in two of his three Cup seasons. Austin Cindric has made the playoffs in three of his four seasons, but in each of those Cindric won a race and he has never had ten top ten finishes in a season.
It is safe to say at least nine spots are claimed before a lap is run. 23XI Racing will be competitive and have at least one car, if not both cars in the top 16. Trackhouse has kept Ross Chastian in and around the top ten, and if van Gisbergen wins enough, he could make it. RFK Racing should benefit the most as Chris Buescher was tenth in the championship when the regular season ended last year, but the lack of a victory kept him out of the playoffs.
It is still going to be interesting for 16th, but there are a handful of drivers that just need to achieve the bare minimum to be a title hopeful.
What counts as a surprise?
Kyle Busch turning it around and getting back into the top 16.
Spire Motorsports rising and becoming a contender with Carson Hocevar.
Josh Berry running well enough to make the top 16 after only making the playoffs thanks to a victory that looked more flukey as the 2025 season went along.
A.J. Allmendinger having great consistency with a road course victory or two putting him in a playoff spot.
All of these are not impractical to happen in the 2026 season but none of these we think will happen.
Could we see a championship clinched early?
This crossed my mind when the format was announced last month. Thanks to stage points, the 2026 season is likely the greatest chance we will see a championship decided with a race to spare since 2003.
If a driver is truly dominant, especially in those final ten races, the championship could be decided with a race to spare. When considering how Corey Heim ran in the Truck Series last year and how Connor Zilisch did in the Grand National Series, if a driver picks up four or five dominant victories and is scoring a lot of stage points, he could enter the final race with a 62-point lead and not even need to turn a lap in the Homestead season finale.
All these changes have been made in hopes of keeping the championship compelling to the final race. NASCAR just might have made a tweak that sees the return of a dead rubber finale. What would it do then?
We will find out in 38 weeks.
