Odds and projections say these winless drivers have the best shot at winning -- if they make it through the wreckage.
For NASCAR drivers seeking a checkered flag, there are a lot more reliable places to go looking than Talladega. As we found in our research last year, fellow superspeedway Daytona was the only regular Cup Series track where the pre-race favorite tended to finish lower on average -- and only Daytona and New Hampshire produced winners with a lower average placement in the pre-race driver rankings.
Simply put, Talladega is no place to be counting on predictable outcomes.
But still, you gotta get out there anyway and ride the draft at 190 mph, hoping for the best and trying to avoid the worst. And that’s especially the case if a driver hasn’t won yet this season. Although it feels like the 2025 schedule just started, the regular season will be halfway over in just a few races’ time. So the clock is ticking to get that first win and punch a ticket to the playoffs.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at which winless drivers are in the best position to leave that club on Sunday ... provided they survive the chaos that is sure to come. First, here’s a plot of the leading favorites at Talladega, based on a combination of their win probabilities -- implied from DraftKings’ odds (as of Tuesday) -- and their projected Driver Ratings, according to my predictive rankings (based on recent performance at ‘Dega and similar tracks):
So, which winless drivers have the best shot at getting that breakthrough win this weekend? Based on pre-race betting odds and track-specific performance, here are the top names to watch with a realistic shot to leave Alabama with their first trophy of 2025:
1. Ryan BlaneyOdds to win: +1000 (implied chance: 6.2%)
Projected Driver Rating: 91.4
Talladega career stats: 21 starts, 3 wins, 6 top fives, 15.9 avg. finish
After a bit of a rough March -- with an average finish of 25.8 in five races -- April has been kinder to Blaney as the No. 12 Team Penske car has finished fifth in consecutive races. Perhaps just as importantly, Blaney has finished three consecutive races without incident after posting a DNF in three of his first six races this season. Now he goes to a track where he’s had plenty of success; he’s one of just three active three-time winners at Talladega and is usually a good bet to contend here, whether it’s the spring race or in the fall. Blaney is due for a W anyway; his 97.5 average Driver Rating this season ranks second in Cup behind only William Byron, and he and Tyler Reddick are the only members in the top six by that metric to have not won yet.
2. (tie) Joey LoganoOdds to win: +1100 (implied chance: 5.7%)
Projected Driver Rating: 86.1
Talladega career stats: 32 starts, 3 wins, 9 top fives, 18.9 avg. finish
Another member of the three-time winner’s club at Talladega, Logano is nonetheless looking for better consistency -- both here and overall in 2025. The defending Cup champion has just a single top-10 finish (at Martinsville) and is coming off a 24th-place finish with a 54.0 Driver Rating at Bristol two weeks ago. Despite his history of wins at Talladega, he’s finished better than 19th here just once in his past nine races. Still, he drove better in a few of those races than his finishes gave him credit for, and he has long been very strong at superspeedways overall. Logano ranks No. 7 in average Driver Rating this season (86.0), just outside that group we mentioned above that either has won or really should have won, so far.
2. (tie) Kyle BuschOdds to win: +1100 (implied chance: 5.7%)
Projected Driver Rating: 85.8
Talladega career stats: 39 starts, 2 wins, 8 top fives, 20.2 avg. finish
Busch has been all over the place to start 2025, following an early stretch of three straight top 10s with back-to-back finishes outside the top 20, then sandwiching a couple of mid-teens finishes around a top 10 at Darlington. Though he has driven well enough to win a few times, Busch is currently riding a 66-race winless streak -- uncharacteristic for a guy who set a Cup Series record for consecutive seasons with at least one win (19). But the second-most recent win of his career did come at Talladega in the 2023 spring race. (Granted, that was the only time he finished better than 19th here in the past five races.) And even when things go sideways for him in the end at ‘Dega, Busch is usually coming off a solid performance on the day, so there’s no reason to think that won’t be the case again this weekend.
4. Austin CindricOdds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 93.0
Talladega career stats: 6 starts, 0 wins, 1 top five, 19.3 avg. finish
Cindric isn’t quite as high in the betting odds as some of the other drivers on this list, but he has the highest projected Driver Rating (93.0) of anyone in the field on Sunday. Why’s that? Cindric just always seems to be a factor at the superspeedways. In addition to posting a rating of 91.6 or higher in each of his past three outings at Talladega, he also had back-to-back ratings of 94.8 or higher at Daytona, and his rating has been in triple-digits in three of his past four races at Atlanta. Overall, there may not be a better driver in Cup at tracks where the draft plays a major factor, and that makes Cindric a good pick to be in the mix late for what would be his first career win in the state of Alabama.
5. Chase ElliottOdds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 83.9
Talladega career stats: 18 starts, 2 wins, 5 top fives, 14.6 avg. finish
Elliott is a fascinating candidate for this list as he is a multi-time winner at Talladega and has been Mr. Consistency overall in 2025. His average finish of 11.6 ranks fourth-best among regular drivers this season, trailing only William Byron (9.1), Denny Hamlin (9.7) and Christopher Bell (9.8). And yet, he has won in just one of his last 79 starts, and his performance at Talladega -- or superspeedways in general -- has been on the decline over the past few seasons. Since the start of 2023, Elliott has an average Driver Rating of 83.1 (merely decent, not great) at ‘Dega and 80.8 at all “restrictor plate” tracks, after sitting at 94.7 in the preceding four seasons. Then again, it’s also worth noting that Elliott’s 29th-place finish here last fall snapped a streak of five straight finishes of 15th or better at Talladega, including a win late in 2022. So it’s anybody’s guess whether that two-time winning form will show up on Sunday or not.
6. Brad KeselowskiOdds to win: +1200 (implied chance: 5.3%)
Projected Driver Rating: 76.1
Talladega career stats: 32 starts, 6 wins, 12 top fives, 15.0 avg. finish
Speaking of fascinating wild-card drivers to watch, there’s the case of Brad K. On the positive side, he is by far the winningest active driver at Talladega in his career, with double the victories of the next-highest-ranked rivals. On the negative side, Keselowski is still searching for better results in what has been the worst season of his career so far by a variety of different metrics. Let’s put it this way: things have gotten so dire that a 16th-place finish at Bristol two weeks ago was considered a massive improvement after three straight races outside the top 25. For this reason, it’s tough to know exactly what to expect from the No. 6 car in this weekend’s race. The Cup Series has only run two other drafting-style races so far this year -- Keselowski posted a below-average Driver Rating in both -- but he has consistently been one of the better plate-track performers in a much larger sample size over the previous five years. He deserves a look among the favorites here.
7. (tie) Tyler ReddickOdds to win: +1600 (implied chance: 4.0%)
Projected Driver Rating: 76.5
Talladega career stats: 10 starts, 1 win, 1 top five, 19.3 avg. finish
Like Blaney, Reddick’s overall performance this season -- he ranks fourth among regular drivers with an average Driver Rating of 96.2, including four races of 98.8 or higher -- is screaming out for a win sooner or later. Will Talladega be the place, though? Well, he has won here before, taking the checkered flag almost exactly a year ago, and he escaped the late carnage to finish second at Daytona in February. However, Reddick is not known as a superspeedway specialist by any means; his career average Driver Rating at Talladega is a subpar 68.6, and his number across all tracks of the type is only barely average (71.3). Reddick’s win here last season was the only time in the past seven races he finished better than 16th at Talladega, a stretch that included four finishes of 20th or worse and a couple of 39th-place runs.
7. (tie) Bubba WallaceOdds to win: +2000 (implied chance: 3.3%)
Projected Driver Rating: 80.5
Talladega career stats: 14 starts, 1 win, 1 top five, 20.4 avg. finish
As the site of half of Bubba’s career victories, it makes sense that Talladega would stand out as a track with the potential to earn him another this weekend -- and end an 88-race winless drought. Wallace is another one who always seems to be squarely in the mix at superspeedways. Since 2020, his average Driver Rating on those tracks (79.6) ranks ninth among regular drivers, trailing only the usual suspects you’d expect (mostly the guys on this list already, plus some ‘25 winners in William Byron and Denny Hamlin). Anybody with that knack for being in the right place at the right time can win at a track like Talladega, though last fall’s top-10 showing snapped a stretch of three straight finishes of 23rd or worse for Wallace here.