NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Joey Logano’s win at Richmond Raceway and before Sunday’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: 2026 Cup Series schedule | Cup Series standings
Analysis: Even on a night when Team Penske and Chase Briscoe largely controlled Richmond, Hamlin quietly did what the championship leader keeps doing: finished fourth and left with an even stronger grip on the standings. It marked his 11th consecutive top-five finish on non-drafting ovals, and his advantage over Ryan Blaney now stands at 115 points with only two regular-season races remaining. Loudon has been one of Hamlin’s best tracks for nearly two decades, with Cup victories in 2007, 2012 and 2017, though he was held out of the top 10 there last season. At this point, the regular-season title appears all but his. A mere formality.
Analysis: Thirteenth at Richmond hardly captures Blaney’s night. The No. 12 started from the pole, led 88 laps, won Stage 1 and spent much of the first half looking like one of the two cars to beat before the race eventually got away from him. Still, Blaney moved back into second in points and gained another 21 tallies relative to The Chase cut. Now comes Loudon, where he led 116 laps and won last season with Joey Logano finishing fourth, an awfully convenient destination for a Penske organization that just put all three cars near the front at Richmond. If there is a driver positioned to make Hamlin work for that top seed over the final two weeks, the defending Loudon winner is probably it. 
Analysis: One speeding penalty was enough to turn Gibbs’ Iowa follow-up from potentially interesting into largely forgettable. He fell off the lead lap during the opening green-flag cycle and never fully recovered, finishing 15th one week after a statement victory. Yet Gibbs remains only 12 points behind Blaney for second in the standings and 11 ahead of Reddick, keeping that three-driver battle extraordinarily compact. Loudon was considerably crueler last year, when Gibbs crashed out after 134 laps and finished 35th. The good news is that one bad pit-road mistake at Richmond did little to change the bigger picture: the No. 54 still looks much more like a contender than an upstart having a nice summer.
Analysis: If not for Logano’s late execution, Richmond probably belongs to Briscoe. He led a race-high 171 laps, ranked first in speed and restarts and spent virtually the entire night inside the top two before brake trouble dulled his advantage late and left him runner-up. That makes six top-six finishes in seven races and formally locks the No. 19 into The Chase, while also extending an almost absurd JGR streak of seven consecutive runner-up finishes across its four drivers. Loudon brought Briscoe a 10th-place finish with 19 laps led last season. He entered the summer as a driver heating up; he leaves Richmond looking like one of the strongest title contenders in the field.
Analysis: For once, Bell didn’t finish second. Seventh at Richmond snapped his personal string of near-misses, but it did little to diminish the broader performance level of a driver still ranked fourth in season-long speed with one of the best pit crews in the series. Better yet, the schedule is about to hand him perhaps his favorite place on the map, in ideal position to strike. Bell has won two of the last four Cup races at New Hampshire, in 2022 and 2024, and owns four O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victories there, including the 2024 event. After seven runner-up finishes without a victory this season, there may not be a more obvious place left for Bell to finally kick down the door.
Analysis: Richmond wasn’t spectacular, but after Iowa, an ordinary race was a nice stabilizer. Reddick started 32nd after spinning in practice, briefly cycled to the lead late and finished 11th, smoothing a stretch in which five of his previous nine finishes had been 30th or worse. He remains fourth in points and second in season-long speed, so the underlying profile still looks considerably healthier than the recent box scores. Loudon, however, offers little recent comfort after a 21st-place finish last season. The five-win first half is still doing plenty of work for Reddick’s championship outlook, but The Chase is close enough now that he’d probably prefer the second half starts contributing again.
Analysis: Hendrick Motorsports finally looked like Hendrick Motorsports again at Richmond, and Elliott led the recovery. Fifth place was his first top five since winning Texas in early May and headlined the organization’s first race with all four cars inside the top 10 since Talladega in April 2025. It also officially secured Elliott’s Chase berth after a summer stretch that had become increasingly difficult to reconcile with his early season form. New Hampshire supplied another fifth-place finish last season after he started 27th, so there is at least a recent roadmap for keeping this going. One good night doesn’t erase the slump, but it finally gives the No. 9 something better than memories of spring to build from.
Analysis: Larson started 30th at Richmond and somehow turned it into sixth, which was precisely the kind of salvage operation Hendrick had been missing during its recent short-track malaise. He still ranks fifth in season-long speed, and the No. 5 crew has climbed to second in the pit-crew standings, so the pieces beneath the disappointing summer remain unusually strong, and it would not be a shocker to see him run roughshod in The Chase. Larson also moved up two positions in the standings and sits 143 above the cut. He finished seventh at Loudon last year after leading four laps, another respectable result at a track where he remains winless in Cup. Richmond looked less like a breakthrough than a tourniquet, but given the previous few weeks, that’ll do.
Analysis: Do not let the boys get hot, indeed. Logano has now won twice in four races after winning only once in the previous 56, and Richmond may have been the most complete statement yet: 95 laps led, a Stage 2 win and a late pass of Briscoe — one of the hardest drivers to pass these days — before edging him by 0.392 seconds. Logano has rocketed from 20th to ninth in points over six races and is now 142 above The Chase cut, transforming his entire season in barely more than a month. And now he gets Loudon, where the New England native owns two Cup victories, led 147 laps last season and finished fourth behind teammate Blaney. The question is no longer whether Logano will make The Chase. It is how seriously everyone should take a three-time champion whose season just snapped violently into place.
Analysis: Buescher’s Richmond night was the kind that makes a comfortable points position feel slightly less comfortable. He finished 21st, ranked only 22nd in speed and gave four points back to the cut, although 136 points still separate him from any actual trouble. The larger season remains sturdier than this one result, with the No. 17 sitting 10th in points and its pit crew ranked sixth overall. Loudon was similarly quiet last year, producing an 18th-place finish. Buescher is almost certainly headed to The Chase; the more interesting question is whether he can arrive looking like anything more threatening than safely qualified.
Analysis: The slide is officially too large to dismiss as one rotten afternoon. After finishing 31st at Iowa, Hocevar stalled on track at Richmond and wound up 37th, dead last, while ranking 31st in speed and 37th in passing. Two races have dropped him from eighth to 11th in points and cost another 19 points of Chase cushion at Richmond, though he still sits 128 above the line. Loudon was far more representative of his 2026 season last year, when Hocevar started sixth and finished 11th. Few need the regular season to end more quickly than No. 77 right now, but first it needs to stop the bleeding. 
Analysis: Byron followed his Iowa top 10 with another at Richmond, quietly contributing ninth place to Hendrick’s organizational rebound while carrying the top-ranked pit crew in the series. The No. 24 is now 113 points above the cut, meaning the winless regular season is much more an aesthetic problem (zeroes don’t look good under the Hendrick banner) than a mathematical one at this stage. Loudon should bring some genuine optimism, though: Byron finished third there last season and previously won the 2016 Craftsman Truck Series race at the track. Hendrick finally showed a pulse at Richmond; Byron now gets a place where turning that pulse into something louder would hardly be surprising. Same can be said for the week after, too.
Analysis: Suárez has reached the portion of the regular season where, in terms of points racing, boring is a feature, not a bug. Sixteenth at Richmond did little for the highlight reel, but the No. 7 actually gained a point relative to The Chase cut and remains 101 above the line with two races remaining. His Richmond speed was only 21st-best, continuing a season in which the results have often been more useful than the underlying pace. Loudon is not an obvious place to get aggressive, either, after Suárez crashed to 36th there last season. At this point, though, he doesn’t need to get aggressive. Two more uneventful weekends would accomplish exactly what matters. 
Analysis: Cindric picked an excellent time for his best short-track finish ever. Starting 23rd, he marched into the top five during the first green-flag cycle, stayed there most of the night and finished third while ranking second in passing, first in defense and third in speed. The payoff was enormous: 28 points gained on the cut and a cushion that has doubled to 57, while Cindric now sits only 13 points behind Wallace for 14th in the standings. Loudon produced only 17th last year, but Penske went first and fourth thereat at one of its best tracks, and just dominated huge portions of Richmond. What looked like a precarious Chase bid a week ago suddenly has some meat on the bone.
Analysis: Wallace has quietly become the driver Cindric is chasing rather than a driver looking forward, trying to gain ground himself. Richmond yielded only 20th after the No. 23 scored Stage 1 points, and although he technically gained two points relative to the cut, Cindric’s podium trimmed the gap between them in the standings to 13. There is still a healthy 70-point buffer back to elimination territory, so this isn’t panic time, but Loudon wasn’t especially friendly last season either — Wallace finished 26th, one lap down. The Chase spot remains his to protect, but the seed positioning immediately behind the clinched group is starting to get crowded and could jumble.
Analysis: Richmond was supposed to be the weekend Ryan Preece started eating into SVG’s advantage. Instead, van Gisbergen finished 14th, actually added three points to the cushion and now heads to Loudon 50 points above the final Chase cut. That makes the remaining math considerably more comfortable than anyone might have expected after Iowa, particularly with only two races left. New Hampshire remains a legitimate hurdle after SVG crashed out and finished 32nd there last season, but the mission has changed a bit. No. 97 does not need to conquer Loudon; he simply needs to avoid giving Preece the enormous opening he now requires.
Analysis: Iowa briefly put Chastain squarely back into The Chase conversation. Richmond pushed him toward the outskirts again, though there is still some light. The No. 1 finished 12th but lost 16 points relative to the cut, stretching the deficit to 63 with only Loudon and Daytona remaining. There is at least a respectable New Hampshire reference point available after Chastain finished ninth there last season, but “useful” finishes are rapidly losing their utility. Loudon probably needs to produce either a massive points haul or a trophy if Chastain wants Daytona to be about anything other than desperation.
Analysis: If there is a place for Preece to make one last stand, Loudon could hardly be scripted better. He, remarkably, ranked first in passing at Richmond but finished only 17th, losing 21 points to The Chase cut and falling a daunting 50 behind SVG. New Hampshire, however, is territory he knows exceptionally well: Preece won the 2021 Whelen Modified Tour race there and finished 14th in last year’s Cup event. Fifty points is an enormous ask, but if Preece is going to make The Chase field sweat, this is where it has to start. If he were able to corral, at this track in this moment, a win — which would be his first points-paying Cup Series victory — it would mark a significant moment in the sport’s history.
Analysis: Keselowski’s midsummer revival has now stalled at exactly the wrong time. Richmond ended with a 26th-place finish, 25th-ranked speed and another 30 points lost relative to The Chase cut, ballooning the deficit to 78. Loudon at least supplies one last historical reason to believe: Keselowski won Cup races there in 2014 and 2020 and also owns two O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victories at the track. Last year’s 23rd-place finish is the less-comforting counterpoint, however, especially when considering those wins came with a different team. With Daytona waiting after this, the path is beginning to look less like points racing and considerably more like win-or-hope-for-chaos.
Analysis: Jones is still mathematically alive, but Richmond made the distinction feel increasingly technical. He finished 27th, ranked 30th in speed and lost 31 more points relative to The Chase cut, leaving him 81 behind SVG. Loudon doesn’t arrive with much recent encouragement, either, after Jones finished 28th there last season. The three drivers immediately ahead of him on the wrong side of the line are separated by only 31 points, but that is increasingly beside the point. Jones needs a result that dramatically changes the equation, and there are only two chances left to find one. It’s looking slim.