Track: Bristol Motor Speedway
Location: Bristol, Tennessee
Track length: 0.533 miles
When: 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: FS1, HBO Max, FOX One, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,233,037
Race distance: 500 laps | 266.5 miles
Stages: 125 | 250 | 500
Sunday’s starting lineup | Cup Series pit stall assignments
All in or staying consistent: Are good results enough without a Victory Lane trip in early leg of 2026 marathon?
BRISTOL, Tenn. — With the Cup Series circuit closing in on the quarter mark of the 2026 season, select drivers have sprinted off their blocks while others are finding a good pace that can set them up for the long haul of the regular season before The Chase.
Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney have set the bar as the first group of winners this year, while a surprising cast of drivers, such as William Byron, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell remain winless despite all having relatively strong starts compared to the rest of the full-time Cup Series roster.
The latter three have been just a step behind the favored sprinters, but good enough not to drift with the peloton deeper in the standings.
With Christopher Bell entering Sunday’s 500-lapper as the most recent Bristol winner, are there early warning signs for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team in the title picture if he isn’t competing for the win?
“Certainly, this is one we expect to be competing up front,” Bell said Saturday. “If we have a good, solid race and get a top five in stage points and restarts don’t work out or strategy doesn’t work out and we run seventh to 10th, it will be an acceptable finish. But if we go out there and just miss the stage points and run in the back half of the top 10, we expect to be better than that, especially here at Bristol. If that happens, I think it will be disappointing. This is one we have circled to go out here and fight for a win at.”
MORE: Weekend schedule, TV info | At-track photos
While it may not be Victory Lane or bust for Bell quite yet, Chris Buescher has been adamant over the last few years that he’ll talk about points when he’s got race trophies put in the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford’s bank.
Buescher, the 2022 Bristol Night Race winner, sits 10th in Cup points, tied with teammate and co-owner Brad Keselowski.
RFK is currently the only team that can boast all of its cars inside the top 16 Chase positions at the moment. It’s good bragging rights early in the season, but Buescher is ready for his next burnout and snap a winless streak that dates back to Watkins Glen International in Sept. 2024.
“We are good at maximizing whatever we may be bringing to the race track,” Buescher said. “We are good at making smart decisions and we haven’t had bad luck too much. Martinsville sure felt like bad luck, but we haven’t had too much really throat punch us, so we’re able to bounce back and just be strong in even the days that are tougher. We are having good days and we are putting points up on the board. Ultimately, we need to be putting trophies up on the shelf and that helps take care of the rest of it. When we went into this season with the Chase format back, in our minds, there’s no doubt that we’re gonna be able to make ourselves a Chase contender. It’s how do we make ourselves a championship contender?”
In the details …
A total of 1,838 laps have been turned in the Cup Series this season, and the amount of time a driver spends in the leaderboard’s upper reaches often translates to results. This year, laps spent among the top 10 haven’t necessarily mirrored success in the standings. William Byron has run among the top 10 for a series-best 77.9 percent of the laps in 2026; he also brings a four-race streak of top-10 finishes to Bristol this weekend. On the flip side, Austin Cindric’s time spent in the top 10 indicates how well he’s run, even though incidents in each of the first four races have held him to 18th in the standings.
Here’s how the Cup Series stacks up for the best top-10 runners, with their points position in comparison:
| Driver | Laps run in top 10 | Standings rank |
|---|---|---|
| William Byron | 1431 | 5th |
| Tyler Reddick | 1331 | 1st |
| Denny Hamlin | 1239 | 3rd |
| Ryan Blaney | 1208 | 2nd |
| Kyle Larson | 1170 | 9th |
| Ty Gibbs | 1069 | 6th |
| Austin Cindric | 1061 | 18th |
| Christopher Bell | 1013 | 7th |
Speed reads
Race-day essentials:
– Bristol hub: Key information, pit-stall assignments, results | Read more
– Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh looks in all three series for Tennessee tilt | View gallery
– Sunday Setup: See what crew chiefs have in mind at Bristol | Read more
– Full race projection: Find out who is predicted to win on Sunday | Read more
– Hauler Talk: Fuel-save focus, Cleetus, San Diego and more | Listen now
– Ty ballgame: Why Gibbs has upside on Bristol’s banks | Neil Paine’s analysis
– Power Rankings: Cup Series’ top 20 drivers after Martinsville | This week’s ranks
– NASCAR Classics: Inside the video vault from Bristol | Watch now
Contributing: Zack Albert | NASCAR.com
