AVONDALE, Ariz. — Thirty thoughts on 30 drivers after NASCAR’s Cup Series finale at Phoenix Raceway, in order of the season-ending point standings …
1. Ryan Blaney
The 2023 Cup Series champion got hot in the playoffs, which has become the model for how you win a NASCAR title these days. But overall seasons like the one Blaney had can also make the stats look jarring compared to the traditional idea of a season-long racing champion.
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To wit: Blaney had just eight top-five finishes this year, which ranked 11th in the series and is the fewest top-fives for a champion in NASCAR’s Modern Era. He also ranked seventh in average finish and seventh in laps led. Some fans may find that upsetting, but it seems like a classic “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” situation.
Ultimately, the playoff system is set up to allow a team to tread water long enough to find the needed speed at the end of the season.
“There were a lot of tough conversations (in the summer): ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something or we’re not going to be competitive at all in the playoffs,'” Blaney said of his team. “Everyone jumped on the opportunity to dig down deep. That’s what they did. Wound up here.”
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2. Kyle Larson
The No. 5 team gave Larson the championship lead on the final pit stop, but he was unable to hold it and was passed by Blaney with 20 laps to go. It was a case of Blaney simply having a faster car, and Larson said he was “extremely bummed” even though he didn’t have the speed to contend for the win.
Hendrick Motorsports seemed to have short tracks as their weak point in the second half of the season, putting them a half-step behind, and was enough to decide the championship race at Phoenix.
“Coming up this close, I’m probably more eager for the following season already,” Larson said. “I know where I need to improve and I’m just ready to get back on the track and work on all that.”
3. William Byron
Despite leading the Cup Series in wins, top-fives, top-10s and average finish — plus scoring the most points of anyone in the playoffs — Byron ended up third in the standings. His No. 24 team lost a bit of speed in Round 3 and the championship after getting finishes of 1-2-2 in Round 2, and that wasn’t good enough to win the title.
“We had a great season, a lot to be proud of, a lot of really solid races, communicating well as a team,” Byron said. “All that stuff can just go up a notch hopefully — just have a bit more speed at certain tracks that we know are important (deep in the playoffs).
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“Definitely down the stretch here, it was tough. We didn’t have really what we needed, but that’s OK.”
4. Christopher Bell
For the second straight year, Bell made the final four with clutch playoff wins but was impacted by circumstances outside of his control in the championship race. Last year, Bell had a slow pit stop when a crew member got his finger stuck between the lug nut and the spindle. On Sunday, the first exploded brake rotor of his career caused him to crash before the halfway point of the finale.
Still, it feels like there’s much more to come for a 28-year-old who is only scratching the surface of what he can accomplish in the Cup Series.
“We left a lot on the table at various races throughout the year,” Bell said. “I’m excited about the future. We haven’t reached our potential yet.”
5. Denny Hamlin
Hamlin ended the season at peace despite seeing another excellent chance at a championship slip away. He reiterated there was nothing else he could have done differently in the playoffs, with a freak power steering failure at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Round 3 as the reason he was eliminated before Phoenix.
“I wish (mechanical failures) weren’t a part of our sport,” Hamlin said. “I wish everyone had the same equipment and it was durable and nothing ever broke and if you ran bad, it’s your fault. I wish that’s the sport we had, but it’s not. I had a crazy, 0.1 percent chance of (the Homestead failure) happening, and it did.
“There’s a luck factor involved. … I wish there was a larger sample size (in the playoffs), but there’s not, and I’ve just got to live with it.”
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6. Tyler Reddick
One of the big preseason topics coming into 2023 was whether Reddick (23XI Racing) or Kyle Busch (Richard Childress Racing) would have a better season with their new teams. For awhile, it looked like it would be Busch, who won three of the first 15 races while Reddick’s team seemed to throw away multiple good runs with various mistakes.
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But Reddick and the No. 45 team got it together for the playoffs, made it to the final eight and ultimately finished an impressive sixth in the standings — seven spots higher than his previous career best (2021).
7. Chris Buescher
This was a career year for Buescher in so many ways. His impressive stats included three wins (his previous career total was two in seven seasons), nine top-fives (nearly matching his entire career number of 10 heading into the season) and 17 top-fives (seven more than his previous career best). Buescher also destroyed his previous best average finish by a whopping 5.1 positions (12.1 this year vs. 17.3 in 2021), which he achieved in part by leading the series in lead-lap finishes (32).
A fifth-place finish at Phoenix left Buescher wondering what could have happened if he had survived the Round of 8.
“What a fantastic year,” he said. “I would have loved to have been in that Championship 4 because I think we would have had a real shot at this thing today. It’s a huge accomplishment for this season, and I can’t wait until next year.”
8. Brad Keselowski
Though he still hasn’t won a race since leaving Team Penske to be a driver/co-owner at RFK Racing, Keselowski made a huge step up in performance this year. He and teammate Buescher seemed to run very close together in many races and Keselowski had notable increases in top-fives (seven this year after having just one last year), top-10s (16 in 2023 vs. six in 2022) and a nearly five-spot jump in average finish.
Keselowski also led more laps than he did in his final year with Penske, and there’s certainly hope he’ll find victory lane again soon for a team on the rise.
9. Ross Chastain
Good luck trying to make sense of this season for Chastain. He was competitive and fast in the early portion of the season, right up until a wreck with Larson while racing for the win at Darlington. The fallout from that — harsh comments from Larson’s team owner, Rick Hendrick, and a public rebuke from Chastain’s owner, Justin Marks — was linked to a sudden dropoff in Chastain’s performance (though it may have been a coincidence next to a team-wide loss of speed).
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Chastain rose up again to win at Nashville and made the playoffs, but had a largely quiet summer and fall — especially compared to last year. Then he went out and became the first driver in 10 years of the playoff elimination format to beat the Championship 4 drivers in the season finale.
“It is so, so good to end this season with all the stuff,” he said. “That’s the best way I can describe it: just a lot of ‘stuff.’ That’s Cup racing. I’m going to make mistakes. They knew that hiring me. Through the good days of winning and the bad days of crashing out going for wins, spinning people out, ultimately they’re there for me. This is a great way to go enjoy the offseason.”
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10. Bubba Wallace
Though Wallace didn’t win this year after getting a victory in each of the past two seasons, it was clearly a step forward. He made the playoffs for the first time in his career, advanced to the Round of 12 and ended up with a top-10 finish in the standings (his previous best career result was 19th).
“Definitely being talked about a lot more for our performances and race results and not so much for the negative headlines,” Wallace said. “We’re going to continue to build on that. I definitely learned a lot about who I am as a driver and just trying to be a better team leader. It’s all starting to click more and more. We’ve just got to get the wick lit earlier in the season.”
11. Martin Truex Jr.
Truex essentially had two completely different seasons: One in the first 26 races, which saw him win three times and capture the regular-season championship, and another in the playoffs, which was perhaps the biggest disaster we’ve ever seen from a top seed (two top-10 finishes and no top-fives in the last 10 races).
But despite ending on a down note and tumbling 10 spots down the standings during the playoffs, Truex said he doesn’t expect any changes to his team aside from the pit crew. The 43-year-old, who eventually announced his 2024 return in August, isn’t interested in parting ways with crew chief James Small or anyone else from his core group.
“Overall, really happy with my team,” he said. “Love my guys. We fought our hearts out.”
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12. Joey Logano
Now that Kevin Harvick is retiring, there’s a potential leadership void in the driving ranks. But Harvick pointed to the 33-year-old Logano as someone who is capable of filling it. Logano has already been very active in that area for years and seems ready to handle the increased responsibility of speaking on behalf of his peers.
“(Drivers) have a very unique perspective that nobody else in the industry has,” Logano said. “Nobody knows what it’s like to be inside the car, to talk to the media, to talk to our fans out there and work on the race team. Nobody can do that — media can’t do that, car owners can’t do that, crew chiefs can’t.
“Drivers see everything, and it’s important we put in our two cents on all of it to try to make it better. Ultimately, it’s how can we make the sport better for the next generation? That’s what true champions do.”
13. Kevin Harvick
In his final career Cup Series race, Harvick didn’t just run well — he had a shot at the win. Harvick led 23 laps until losing his track position and being unable to get back through traffic, but it was still good enough for a seventh-place finish — extending his all-time NASCAR record for the most consecutive top-10 finishes at a single track (21).
“I’d rather walk away competitive than flop around looking for a paycheck,” he said. “That’s always been one of my goals: to walk out as competitive as possible. And we did that.”
Harvick’s departure means there are no full-time drivers remaining from NASCAR’s Winston Cup Era, which ended after 2003. The only other two active drivers from the pre-playoffs days, Ryan Newman and Jimmie Johnson, will likely run a handful of races next season.
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14. Kyle Busch
It’s easy to forget Busch only won four races total in his last three years combined at Joe Gibbs Racing, so getting three wins in his first season at RCR is certainly something noteworthy. RCR looked like more of a lateral move than a step down for Busch, as he had more top-fives and a better average finish than last year — even if it wasn’t up to his historical standards of excellence.
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“I would say it was OK,” Busch said. “Did we meet expectations? Yes. There were a lot of doubters I wasn’t going to win at RCR, so for us to go out and win was really good. We’re building a notebook and building our program this year to get ready to go back to some of these places for a second time. So I’d like to think next year, we can be even better.”
15. Michael McDowell
Another season, another improved performance for McDowell and his Front Row Motorsports team. McDowell won his first non-superspeedway race and was never outside the top 20 in points for the entire second half of the season.
How can his team maintain the upward trajectory from recent years?
“The biggest thing is just keeping the drive and that mentality of wanting to get better,” he said. “We’re hopeful in the offseason we’ll be able to make some investments that will help that from a tooling standpoint and a personnel standpoint. There’s a few things we know right off the top that we need to do to really make that next step.
“We’re not at our ceiling. We’re not at our cap. But we still have to do those things to get there.”
16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
This season was about much more than a Daytona 500 victory for Stenhouse. His JTG Daugherty Racing team took a legitimate step forward in performance, as Stenhouse saw his average finish jump a full five positions to 17.8 — the second-best mark of his career and best since 2017. The team had a miserable playoffs and ended with six straight finishes of 19th or worse, but Stenhouse still viewed the year as a success overall.
A major focus for the offseason: Qualifying. Stenhouse had an average qualifying position of 21.8, which ranked 25th in the series and put him constantly behind to start races in many weeks.
“Our bad races are better and our good races are better,” he said. “If we brought that (qualifying) average up, we can take another step in that direction.”
17. Chase Elliott
To hear Elliott tell it, his time on the sidelines with a broken leg this spring had nothing to do with not winning races. Sure, he would have made the playoffs and gone to the Round of 8 (as his team did in owner points). But Elliott would have still been short of a final four spot and likely winless as well (he said it’s not realistic to think otherwise).
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“It was really a reflection of where we left off the season last year,” he said. “Unfortunately, we never figured some of those things out and got better.”
But Elliott felt he and his team made significant gains in solving the car’s handling issues, which has actually left the No. 9 “in a better place than we were a year ago” to end the season.
“We’re looking in the right directions. I’m looking in the right directions,” he said. “I’m putting the emphasis on the things I need to be putting them on to push myself to be better.”
18. Ty Gibbs
The Rookie of the Year quietly had a very impressive first season in the Cup Series with four top-fives (more than well-established drivers like Daniel Suárez and Stenhouse) and 10 top-10s (which equaled veterans like Wallace and Alex Bowman). He clearly laid a foundation for a long career to come, and his performance at Bristol (102 laps led, fifth-place finish) hinted at the 21-year-old’s potential.
“I can’t be completely satisfied because I’m not in the playoffs and I didn’t win a race,” Gibbs said. “But if you go back and look statistically and are not selfish about it, I’m doing OK. I’ve just got to pick it up. I’m happy we’ve got great speed.”
19. Daniel Suárez
This was a disappointing season for Suárez after making the playoffs last year. His statistics declined in every major category, including an average finish of 19th — four spots below Trackhouse Racing teammate Chastain. Suárez also had twice as many DNFs (six) as top-five finishes (three).
Team owner Justin Marks addressed Suárez’s season after Chastain won the season finale at Homestead, saying changes may need to come for Suárez to improve.
“We just have to take a hard look at that and make sure we re-rack the deck in 2024 with a tremendous opportunity for him to go out and be successful, because we’ve got the people and partners and tools to have both these cars in the playoffs and fighting in every round,” Marks said. “We owe it to him. He’s a tremendous human being. He’s a tremendously talented race car driver that wants it as much as anybody else out here. We’re going to try to make sure the next season replicates 2022.”
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20. Alex Bowman
A broken back sustained in a sprint car accident caused Bowman to miss the playoffs for the first time in his Hendrick Motorsports career, and he often seemed to be the forgotten Hendrick car this season. His average finish of 17.2 was his lowest since 2015, when Bowman was driving a backmarker car for Tommy Baldwin Racing.
So did his still-healing back play a role in his performance decline? Bowman said he didn’t feel “that bad” but acknowledged the back is still hurting at times.
“I couldn’t really walk the week after the (Coke) 600,” he said. “Then I felt pretty good for a little bit and the Indy road course (in August) got my back pretty bad. When I did the Indy oval test the next couple days, I was hurting a lot more than I expected to.”
Even at Martinsville, six months after the injury, he said his back was a little sore. It led him to believe the heavy braking tracks have been difficult, though he refused to use it as an excuse.
“I feel pretty good at this point and we’re just really struggling to execute,” he said. “It’s definitely been frustrating.”
21. AJ Allmendinger
Though his return to full-time Cup Series racing saw Allmendinger win the Charlotte Roval last month, the season was disappointing overall. Allmendinger had just seven top-10 finishes, which is one less than he had in running a half-season last year for Kaulig Racing.
“What really hurt us was the beginning of the year was really bad,” Allmendinger said. “We were way off compared to where we thought we’d be. After May was when we figured out, ‘OK, this is what we’re lacking,’ and then from there, it’s been what I expected.”
Allmendinger still declined to shed light on his plans for next season, though it’s widely believed he will return to Kaulig’s Xfinity Series team so the team can put a driver with funding behind him into the No. 16 Cup car.
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22. Aric Almirola
Almirola’s retirement season was miserable enough to make people wonder if he regretted coming back for one more year — it was his worst points finish since 2017 — but he said that wasn’t the case.
“Not one bit,” Almirola said. “Zero regrets. Do I wish we would have ran better this year? Absolutely, 100 percent. But we have gotten to do some awesome things as a family and experience different things.”
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One of those experiences was his Xfinity Series win at Sonoma, which he called rejuvenating and seems to have him considering running a part-time Xfinity Series schedule next season. As it stands now, Almirola ends his full-time Cup Series career with three wins, 30 top-fives and 96 top-10s in 460 starts.
23. Ryan Preece
In a year of struggles for Stewart-Haas Racing, Preece showed flashes of speed at times and made it through two scary superspeedway crashes along the way. Now, with Ford getting a new car for 2024, Preece hopes to see improvement on intermediate tracks (SHR was already strong on superspeedways and short tracks) during his second year with the team.
“Next year, the goal is to consistently be where we should be,” Preece said. “We have a notebook now. … We’ve learned what I like and what I don’t.”
24. Austin Cindric
A frustrating sophomore slump for Cindric saw his average finish decline by more than five spots and end the season with only 20 lead-lap finishes (only three full-time Cup drivers had fewer than that). Cindric said this season challenged him in different ways than ever before in his career, but it’s also caused him to be more introspective on how to improve performance.
“I prepare at a pretty high level for most races, and for that to not bear fruit on a more consistent basis definitely can be frustrating and make you question your process,” he said.
The good news? Cindric said the final month of the season represented some progress in the right direction and “next year is where that can be showcased.”
25. Corey LaJoie
LaJoie went the entire season — all 36 points races, plus the Clash, Daytona Duel and All-Star Open — without a single DNF. According to The Racing Experts, that makes him just the 15th driver in Cup Series history to finish every race (and only the fifth since 2017, when NASCAR instituted the crash damage clock).
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The 25th-place points finish was a career-best for LaJoie, as were his number of top-fives (two), top-10s (three) and average finish (20.8).
26. Justin Haley
Haley seemed extremely glad to be done with this season, which marked the end of his tenure with Kaulig Racing. He’ll head to Rick Ware Racing next year, where he signed a multiyear deal, after he saw his average finish fall by 2.6 spots and ended four positions lower in the point standings than last year.
“Halfway through the season announcing you’re leaving, we definitely didn’t get any faster,” Haley said. “Candidly, you’re going to have that. (Allmendinger) struggled as well. It’s just tough for a team like Kaulig where your resources are very limited and the resources you get are from another team.”
27. Erik Jones
This wasn’t close to the overall season Jones and his No. 43 team had in 2022, but the team’s performance noticeably improved in the second half despite already announcing Legacy Motor Club would move from Chevrolet to Toyota next year. That included a third-place run in the Kansas playoff race and a 10th-place finish in the Southern 500.
“We lost a handful of our tools we had early in the season with our announcements, so we had to go on our own,” Jones said. “Got some good notes we had and have really just refined those. … I wish I could tell you there was one magic thing we did, but it was really a lot of small things that added up.”
28. Todd Gilliland
The 23-year-old took a small step forward, doubling his number of top-10s and improving his average finish by 1.2 spots. But he also struggled with inconsistency, particularly when he was forced to switch between Front Row Motorsports and Rick Ware Racing for five races this season.
“It’s so hard to get back into a rhythm and carry any momentum when you’re doing that,” he said.
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Still, Gilliland performed well enough to earn another contract at Front Row, where he’ll get a full season in the No. 38 car this time.
29. Austin Dillon
Dillon’s 60-point penalty in April put the team in a difficult position, and the driver felt he had to press to make up for what he called a “momentum killer.”
“We tried to double down and make up some of those points, and I started getting in wrecks — some things in my control, some things out of it — and then we just had times when we weren’t good,” Dillon said.
That showed up in the statistics: Dillon had the worst average finish of his 10-year Cup career, largely because of a series-leading 10 DNFs (all due to crashes).
30. Chase Briscoe
A massive 120-point penalty issued to Briscoe’s team for a counterfeit part in May effectively ruined his season and left him in an abyss when it came to racing for points. Had his points been restored, Briscoe would have ended 22nd in the standings instead of 30th.
“It’s been hard, truthfully, to stay motivated, not having the points to race for,” he said. “I’ve always been in some type of points battle. With our penalty, we haven’t really done that. I’m definitely excited to push the refresh button. It’s been hard just knowing that even if we run second on that day, it doesn’t do anything for us in the big scheme of things.”
(Top photo: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
