NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Shane van Gisbergen’s win at Sonoma Raceway and before Sunday’s eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway (6 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: 2026 Cup Series schedule | Cup Series standings
Analysis: Hamlin picked a pretty convenient week to have his first truly rough finish in a while (and worst since the Daytona 500 — in February). The No. 11 came home 26th at Sonoma after spinning from seventh on a Lap 64 restart, but Tyler Reddick’s day was even worse, handing Hamlin the regular-season points lead by a single marker (also for the first time since Reddick claimed it after winning the Daytona 500). That doesn’t make Sonoma a “good” result for him, but it does make it survivable with a silver lining — and surviving bad weeks at the exact moment your closest rival stumbles is, at the very least, fortuitous. Chicagoland is a much better place for Hamlin to steady the whole thing, too. He won there in 2015 and owns seven top 10s in 14 starts at the 1.5-mile track with a level of experience there that significantly outweighs the field, so the first trip back since 2019 should quickly remind everyone why he’s wearing the crown for now.
Analysis: Reddick’s Sonoma started badly and got worse from there. A power-steering issue sent the No. 45 in for repairs early, and while he eventually returned five laps down, the damage was already done, as it resulted in a 36th-place finish that cost him the points lead for the first time all season. The five wins, 12 top 10s and overall 2026 profile still keep him firmly in the top two, but the untouchable version of Reddick’s season is officially gone. Chicagoland doesn’t offer any Cup history to lean on, either, which makes this weekend a little more of a pure-form test than a track-stat bounce-back spot. He’s still one of the two standards of the season, but now he’s the hunter instead of the rabbit being chased.
Analysis: Blaney’s Sonoma race was quite useful for No. 12, as a top-six finish on a road course has historically been about his best-case scenario on these types of tracks. He finished sixth, grabbed a Stage 2 point, led a lap through the pit cycle and kept himself comfortably third in the standings while the top two continue to trade haymakers. The gap to Hamlin and Reddick remains substantial, but Blaney is building a very sturdy third lane behind them and could theoretically strike before the regular season is up. Chicagoland backs that up better than most upcoming tracks might, too. In four Cup starts there, Blaney owns a 9.8 average finish, one top five and two top 10s. If the No. 12 is going to turn “reliable” into “dangerous” again, this is a reasonable place to start.
Analysis: Larson finally has something resembling week-to-week stability again, and that matters tremendously in this Chase system. He finished fourth at Sonoma after spending most of the day in the top five, briefly led late through the final pit cycle and now has five top-five finishes in his last six races. This no longer looks like a winless drought but a countdown until he unleashes the summer afterburners and jets off. Chicagoland is exactly the kind of place that could serve as the launching pad. Larson has never won a Cup race there, but he owns four top fives, five top 10s and a ridiculous 6.2 average finish in six starts. If there is a “how has he not won yet?” track, it’s probably this one. If it had remained on the schedule the past several years, this certainly would not still be a question.
Analysis: Gibbs turned in the strongest race of anyone not named SVG at Sonoma. The No. 54 started from the pole, swept both stages, led 31 laps and finished third, putting together the kind of complete road-course weekend that he needs to remain capable of contending while he continues rounding into form elsewhere. The 2026 emergence overall is real, though — we’re at the halfway mark, and he’s fourth in points, with three stage wins and 139 stage points. There is nothing prospect-y about that anymore. Chicagoland is a blank Cup sheet for Gibbs, but that might not matter much with the way Joe Gibbs Racing is operating, particularly on the intermediates. The next step is obvious and getting louder: No. 54 is good enough to win again, and soon.
Analysis: Elliott held sixth in these rankings, as Sonoma was not a convincing argument to move him back up. He finished 17th after spinning in Turn 6, scored no stage points and watched Gibbs, Larson and SVG all make louder statements on a track type where the No. 9 typically expects to matter more. The broader season is still strong enough, with two wins and eight top 10s while sitting sixth in points, but the edge has dulled a bit lately. Chicagoland is a much better setup for a correction, however. Elliott owns two top fives, two top 10s, 117 laps led and an 8.8 average finish in four Cup starts there. If he’s going to remind everyone he belongs closer to the front of this list, the track gives him a real opening.
Analysis: Buescher’s Sonoma was a rare recent week in which the No. 17 didn’t get much out of the day, on one of his better track types, to boot. He finished 19th, lost a bit of ground to the cutline and gave back two spots in these rankings after briefly cracking the top five. Still, this is not a collapse — he remains seventh in points and 129 above the cutline even without a win, which says plenty about how much weekly value he has banked. Chicagoland, historically, does not exactly scream automatic rebound, though he was in a much different place in his career while these stats were accumulated. Still, Buescher has four Cup starts there with no top 10s and a 23.8 average finish. The season-long floor is still trustworthy, but this weekend will test how portable that really is.
Analysis: Hocevar’s Sonoma was a bit quieter than San Diego, and that might have been the best thing for him. He started second, ran near the front early, finished 11th and avoided turning another high-upside day into a headline for the wrong reason. He remains eighth in these rankings, eighth in points and 120 points above the cutline, which is still a pretty wild sentence for this stage of the season for a driver who entered the year with zero Cup wins and no guarantee the first would come this season, which it did. Chicagoland will be new territory for him in Cup, but a worn 1.5-mile track should not scare the No. 77 team given the intermediate-track gains Spire has shown all year.
Analysis: Briscoe jumps two spots because Sonoma was not just a good race for No. 19; it was nearly season-changing. He finished second to what appeared to be an untouchable SVG by a mere 0.357 seconds, kept pressure on the best road-course driver in the field all the way to the end and briefly looked like he might have a shot before overcooking Turn 1 in the closing laps. That one stings for sure, but it also reinforces that Briscoe, a Championship 4 driver last fall, is more than just hanging around here. Chicagoland is interesting because he has no Cup history there, but he did win an ARCA Menards Series race at the track in 2016. Add that to five top fives and seven top 10s this season, and this feels less like a strong recent run and more like a 2026 identity finally forming.
Analysis: Bell needed a clean result in the worst way, and Sonoma finally gave him one. The No. 20 finished fifth, scoring points in both stages and recovering from a messy pit stop where he left with the left-front wheel not tight and had to back up. Given the recent run of engine trouble, wrist drama, fuel heartbreak and general nonsense, a top five counts as a deep, midway-point exhale. Chicagoland is a place without Cup history for Bell, as well, but the track still carries a nice little footnote: he won the ARCA race there in 2017, and there’s little reason why he won’t be fast. The speed has rarely been the issue. If the bad-luck tax is finally easing up, Bell could climb fast, especially as he continues to heal and with a “normal” track this weekend.
Analysis: SVG did exactly what he was supposed to do at Sonoma (and what he intended to do at San Diego … ), and that almost makes it harder to appreciate how absurd and impressive it actually was. He won from sixth with a car he was very much not happy with on Saturday, led 74 of 110 laps, posted 23 fastest laps by the late stages and spent basically the entire race in control before holding off Briscoe, who had a faster car, at the finish. That moved him back above the cutline by 36 points and gave him his second Cup win of the season. The reason he is still only 11th is simple: Chicagoland — along with the rest of the schedule — has no right-hand turns. There is no Cup history for him there, of course, and the next question is how much of this momentum survives away from the road courses. His ceiling on those tracks is literally non-existent. His full-season ceiling, however, is still being established.
Analysis: Suárez took a small rankings hit because Sonoma — a track he’s won at — never got going the way it needed to. An early tire concern sent him to pit road from deep in the field, and he never fully recovered on the way to a 31st-place finish that cost him ground to the cutline. The good news is the overall position remains sturdy enough, with No. 7 still ninth in points and 95 markers above the bubble. Chicagoland is at least not a total mystery, either. Suárez owns a 15.7 average finish in three Cup starts there, which is fine, if not especially spicy. The mission this week is simple: get back to collecting useful points before a quiet wobble turns into a louder one.
Analysis: Byron’s Sonoma was fine — normally a positive adjective as it pertains to Wine Country — but “fine” is not really where the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet expects to live. He finished 12th, led a lap through the pit cycle and gained enough to move up one spot in the standings, but the larger picture remains frustrating for a driver who should feel more dangerous than his week-to-week finishes in 2026 suggest. Chicagoland gives him one of the better cases for a rebound, though. Byron has only two Cup starts there, early on in his career, but he owns a top 10, a 14.0 average finish and a respectable 9.5 average start. The sample is old and small, but the broader point still holds: this is a 1.5-mile chance for a Hendrick driver who badly needs a more convincing summer and should be heating up soon, in theory.
Analysis: Wallace gives back four spots after Sonoma, which was not a shock so much as a reminder that road courses, while he’s improved on them lately, remain his pain point. After the San Diego runner-up raised the expectations, No. 23 qualified into the trouble portion of the pack, furthered the issue by going to the rear for unapproved adjustments, got bounced around during the race and ultimately finished 22nd, which honestly isn’t as poor of a result as it was looking like. He remains 55 points above the cutline, so there’s no need to panic, but the prove-it nature of his jump last week did not exactly get answered. Chicagoland doesn’t offer a huge safety net, either. Wallace has two Cup starts there, no top 10s and a 24.0 average finish. The momentum isn’t gone, but it has taken a pretty obvious dent.
Analysis: Preece keeps inching upward, and it no longer feels accidental or circumstantial. He followed the San Diego stage-win surge with an eighth-place finish at Sonoma, giving the No. 60 team another badly needed points day and a 13-point cushion above the cutline as Preece rounds into a respectable road racer. The early-season penalty still hangs over the math, but Preece has done a pretty good job of making sure it did not define the whole season. There isn’t much Chicagoland on the resume for obvious reasons — one Cup start, 28th-place finish — so this one leans more on current form than track history. That is not the worst thing, because his current form is the best argument he has right now.
Analysis: Cindric continues to live on the narrowest part of the bubble, which is a stressful but still reasonable place to be, given his three-time champion teammate is below it. He finished 13th at Sonoma, scored Stage 2 points and remains 12 points above the cutline with eight races left before The Chase. The No. 2 team still does not feel especially explosive — even teammate Ryan Blaney has had trouble converting obvious speed into wins this year — but it’s doing just enough to stay upright while others wobble. Chicagoland brings no Cup history for Cindric, making the Penske baseline more relevant than anything else. And in 2026 that’s lower than it historically is, so it could be an uphill battle this weekend.
Analysis: Jones drops three spots in the standings because Sonoma put a real dent in what had been one of the better bubble pushes of the past month. He went to the rear after unapproved adjustments, finished 23rd and slipped 12 points below the cutline after briefly looking like he had grabbed firm control of a Chase spot. The Legacy Motor Club surge still hasn’t disappeared, but the cushion sure has. Chicagoland offers a sneaky good lifeline, though. Jones has two top 10s in three Cup starts there, plus O’Reilly Auto Parts Series wins at the track in 2015 and 2016. If there is a place for No. 43 to stop the slide quickly, this is a pretty good candidate.
Analysis: Keselowski moves up two spots, but this still does not feel especially healthy. He finished 15th at Sonoma, a step forward on paper, yet still lost ground to the cutline and sits 25 points out with time starting to get uncomfortable. The encouraging part is that Chicagoland might be the best track on the board for him right now. Keselowski, on top of having an experience edge on the field like Hamlin, owns two Cup wins, five top fives, nine top 10s and an 8.8 average finish in 11 starts there. If the veteran’s program is going to reinsert itself into The Chase picture, it almost has to look alive this weekend. His track history is too good for anything less.
Analysis: Allmendinger’s Sonoma wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t the kind of road-course swing he needed on a track he needed to maximize. He finished 16th, lost five points to the cutline and remains 26 points outside the provisional Chase field as the schedule moves away from one of his best disciplines for the remainder of the season. That’s the problem. The road stretch kept him relevant, but it did not fully change the math, and Chicagoland does not help much historically, either. Allmendinger has 10 Cup starts there with no top 10s and a 21.3 average finish. The door is still cracked, but he may have missed his best chance to kick it open.
Analysis: Logano falls to the final spot, and even that feels a little generous given the standard attached to the No. 22. Sonoma ended with a 24th-place finish, another quiet points day and a 31-point deficit to the cutline, leaving the three-time champ in a slow-motion fight just to stay relevant amid one of the most challenging seasons of his career. Chicagoland is the hope, and at least it’s a credible one. Logano has three top fives, seven top 10s, a pole and an 11.5 average finish in 11 Cup starts there, plus two O’Reilly wins at the track. If Penske is going to drag this season back toward normalcy, Chicagoland is a logical place to start. If it doesn’t happen there, the questions get a whole lot louder.