1. Which Chevrolet driver will get the manufacturer its first NASCAR Cup Series win of the season?
Christopher Hansen: William Byron returns this weekend to the site of one of his most dominant performances of 2025, last year’s spring race at Darlington Raceway. Byron led 243 of the race’s 293 laps from the pole before finishing second after a late caution allowed Denny Hamlin to score the win. Through the opening five races of 2026, he is tied for the second-most points among Chevrolet drivers at 157, while Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott leads the bowties with 168 points. Despite only having two top-10 finishes to start the year, Darlington could be the track where Chevrolet will get its season going in the right direction after Toyota’s dominant start.
Steve Sonderman: If the win comes in the next two races, it will likely be Byron. If the win comes at Bristol Motor Speedway, it will be Kyle Larson. Toyota has been pacing the field, but Chevy, specifically Hendrick Motorsports, has not been that far off. Wins tend to come in bunches, and HMS will likely put together a streak at some point.
Ben Lloyd: Any of the three non-injured Hendrick drivers are a safe bet, but it would be a very Larson-like thing to do for him to win shortly after people begin talking about his winless drought.
Michael Bellifemini: It will be a Hendrick driver since it is the only Chevrolet team that has race-winning speed. Larson and Byron seem like they are both due to get to victory lane again soon.
Inside Chevrolet’s Sluggish Start to the Cup Series Season
2. How many Cup wins will Denny Hamlin wind up with when he retires from racing full-time?
Lloyd: It’s rare that a guy gets to go out at the top of his game. I think about Kevin Harvick hitting a brick wall in his final year. Who would have ever thought that Dover Motor Speedway race in 2017 would be Jimmie Johnson’s last win? Hell, Hamlin could easily finish with 61. I don’t think that’s the case, however. The No. 11 team is absolutely dialed in and on a revenge tour after how 2025 ended. He gets three more this year to put him at 64 by the end of 2026, and then two next year in ‘27 to leave him with 66 career wins, should he retire.
Bellifemini: Hamlin will finish in the 65- to 70-win range. If he wins the title this year, it seems like he will retire on top, and if he doesn’t, it looks like next year will be his final season as he will be 46 going into next season.
Hansen: Should he continue to win at the level he’s currently at, Hamlin will come close to passing Dale Earnhardt on the all-time wins list and finish his Cup career at 70 wins. As demonstrated last year when he scored six victories, Hamlin still has the ability to dominate at a high level. If future seasons look anything like how the 2025 season went, Hamlin could very easily surpass Earnhardt’s career mark of 76.
Sonderman: The only thing that seems like it could slow Hamlin down is the expiration of his contract at Joe Gibbs Racing. As a championship contender, there’s no reason to believe he won’t add multiple wins to his season. Having reached 60 victories, making it into the 70s is a realistic goal.
3. All three of Joe Gibbs Racing’s full-time entries in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series are outside the top 10 in points. Which JGR O’Reilly driver is most likely to win and get the program back on track?
Bellifemini: Brandon Jones has had success at Darlington, so I can see him having a big weekend, but Taylor Gray is the most consistent driver in the organization. If he didn’t have that crash with Sheldon Creed at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he would be higher in points right now.
Hansen: It’ll be Jones, and it could happen as soon as this weekend at Darlington, where Jones is the defending race winner of the spring event. Despite having only a single top-10 finish to show for his 2026 season, Jones has begun to trend in the right direction. These next few races line up well for Jones, with Darlington, Martinsville, Rockingham Speedway and Bristol all solid tracks for JGR as a team.
Sonderman: Gray has shown consistent speed this year. He took the pole at Phoenix Raceway and was running up front in Vegas until Creed sent him into the fence. Although Gray has impressed early, the next JGR driver to get a win will be Brent Crews. In his limited starts so far this season, he has run well. As he transitions to a full-time schedule with more opportunities ahead, he should find victory lane sooner rather than later.
Lloyd: I don’t see anyone in the JGR NOAPS stable as true game-changers. Its wins this year come from the No. 19. Outside of that, Gray is the most consistent full-timer that’s a threat.
Do NASCAR Development Series Have An Identity Crisis?
4. Should the 750-horsepower package be applied to all of the tracks on the Cup schedule in 2027?
Sonderman: The addition of 750 hp to certain tracks has received a positive reception from drivers. If adding it to intermediate tracks and superspeedways, it would be important to ask what problems it would be fixing. Intermediate tracks consistently produce the best product. The race last weekend at Vegas was boring at times, but it would be a bit alarmist to say that racing on intermediate tracks needs to change. Superspeedways could use improvement, but going to 750 hp is not likely to change the way teams race on these tracks. NASCAR would be adding horsepower just to watch teams continue to save fuel and log slow lap times early in stages.
Bellifemini: I don’t know if NASCAR will pull the trigger on raising the horsepower everywhere, but if the racing is improved at all the short tracks this season, hopefully that will entice it to give the Cup Series a boost everywhere next year. The diffuser is another part of the car that could be tinkered with at some tracks to improve the racing, so it will interesting to see what NASCAR decides to do in the near future.
Lloyd: Depends on the product at the 1.5-mile tracks going forward. That package has been so good historically that I’d hate to mess with it, but it’s possible as teams get the Next Gen more dialed and the racing becomes a bit more stale. I doubt that will happen, and until it does, I say don’t touch the 1.5-mile package.
Hansen: I would like to see what changes to the on-track product for the 1.5-mile intermediate tracks, which is where the Next Gen car has put on the most entertaining racing product. In the race at Phoenix a couple of weekends ago, it was refreshing to see some parity throughout the field, with comers and goers as the race progressed. On the intermediate tracks, the increase in horsepower would be a positive as we could see more off-throttle time and more car management, as drivers like Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Larson are among the best in the Cup Series at finding speed on a long green-flag run.
