The first quarter of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season is in the books and some pre-season questions are being answered while others still loom following the trek to Bristol Motor Speedway.
With Talladega Superspeedway on the horizon Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the unknowns will set the stage for the next nine races as the circuit barrels toward the halfway mark of the campaign. But what we do know is that a handful of story lines have emerged from the first quarter, so let’s take a look at some of the hot-button topics before action resumes in NASCAR’s premier series.
RELATED: Cup standings | Talladega schedule
1. Which driver of the current ‘Big 4’ is emerging as the championship favorite?
A pair of Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing drivers have stood above the rest so far in 2025 as William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson appear to be the top candidates for a deep playoff run and championship bid in November.
All four rank inside the top 10 in every key metric from NASCAR Insights (passing, defense, speed, restarts, pit crew) besides Bell’s 12th-place slot in defense.
The driver that’s stood out on the stat sheet the most has been the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver Byron. After Bristol, he ranks first in defense, speed and restarts, and is the only one of the group of four to lead in any one category. Despite not being a multi-time winner this year like his counterparts, he’s been the most consistent with an average finish of 9.1. That has paid dividends as he leads driver’s points by 30 over Denny Hamlin.
2. When does Chase Elliott score his next victory?
A head-scratcher over the last 18 months has been the limited amount of trips to Victory Lane of the 2020 Cup Series champion. Elliott’s last two wins came at Texas Motor Speedway over a year ago, and you have to go back to the Talladega playoff race in Oct. 2022 for his second-to-last win.
Two of Elliott’s teammates, Byron and Larson, have won a combined 22 races in the span the No. 9 driver has won just one race. You also have to go back to the Charlotte Roval playoff race in 2022 for the last time Elliott led the most laps in a Cup event.
Looking into the future, where could we see the No. 9 finally return to Victory Lane?
The next six weeks are going to be pivotal in how Elliott’s season plays out with favorable tracks at Talladega and Texas coming up next. An average finish of 10.1 at Kansas Speedway will make him a sure-fire favorite heading to the Sunflower State in May and was in the picture of the thrilling photo finish last spring at the 1.5-mile oval. Following Kansas, Elliott is a two-time runner-up in the Coca-Cola 600 and won at Nashville in 2022. Michigan is the last of really solid tracks for the No. 9 team as the Dawsonville, Georgia native led 29 laps in the Irish Hills last year.
3. When does Team Penske break through in 2025?
It’s not for a lack of effort, but Team Penske has yet to grab a checkered flag through the first nine races. Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric are in the top six in laps led in the series with a combined 617 circuits led in the early portion.
Blaney seemed to have a win at Darlington in the bag after shaving off a massive gap to Tyler Reddick and passing him in the closing laps. However, an untimely caution nipped the No. 12 team after a slow money stop, resulting in fifth place instead. With back-to-back top-five results, the 2023 Cup titleholder is due for a win soon, but it’s difficult so far to say the same for his counterparts.
Logano only has one top 10 this season despite sitting ninth in points, and while the 70 stage points are among the most gathered by any driver at this point, 2025 is trending toward another win-or-miss-the-playoffs type of year for the defending champion. It’s a spot they may not be comfortable with, but have become accustomed to over the last two title campaigns for the No. 22 camp.
For all three, Talladega needs to be circled this weekend as the one where the organization nets its first guaranteed playoff bid.
4. A new and familiar era set to shake up the summer stretch
As we near June and July, a handful of goodies await the NASCAR community highlighted by Prime Video’s first Cup Series races and the return of TNT Sports to the broadcasting family.
Not only does a new mix of TV partners carry the early portions of summer, but June will also see the introduction of the in-season challenge. With seeding of the 32-driver bracket to be decided at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono, Atlanta kicks off the five-race tourney and will be carried through TNT’s entire window to its conclusion at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the final Sunday of July.
Speaking of Mexico City, it will be the Cup Series’ first trek to the 2.42-mile road course and the first international points-paying race since 1958.
RELATED: Details on in-season challenge | NASCAR expands global reach with upcoming Mexico City race
5. Will Ryan Preece be the first RFK Racing driver to win this season?
In his sixth full-time Cup Series campaign, Preece is beginning to come into his own with his new home at RFK Racing. He’s already trending toward setting a new high in top 10s with three in the first nine races at Las Vegas, Homestead and Martinsville.
As it stands after nine races, Preece is currently in a playoff spot sitting 14th in points and trailing teammate Chris Buescher by just two spots and 26 points in the standings.
Teammate and co-owner Brad Keselowski is off to a slow start in 2025 and currently sits 31st in points, but it appears the organization is heading in the right direction despite not getting a single car inside the top 10 at Bristol.
Like Team Penske, Talladega feels like a pivotal point for RFK, especially for someone like Keselowski who could flip his season around with a seventh win at the superspeedway, which would surpass Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.
With the speed Preece and Buescher have consistently shown this season, Kansas and Nashville could be favorable for the two as the No. 17 driver tries to exact his revenge after ending up on the wrong slide of the closest finish in NASCAR history, while a slower-paced, concrete oval could be the breakthrough race for Preece.
6. Which track produces the next surprise winner?
Usually, this is a straightforward answer with Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta automatic here, but that didn’t happen in the first two races of the season as Byron and Bell won those respectively. The first real shock of the season came at Las Vegas, of all places, as Josh Berry claimed his first career Cup Series victory.
If you look at last season, Gateway (Cindric), Richmond (Austin Dillon) and Darlington (Chase Briscoe) all produced surprises, and that could very well be the case again this year at non-superspeedway tracks.
Back-to-back street/road-course events at Chicago and Sonoma stand out on the schedule in July. Shane van Gisbergen won Chicago in his Cup debut in 2023 and won Stage 1 in 2024 before a crash shortly after. Buescher and Michael McDowell nearly won at Sonoma last year before Larson provided a masterclass in the final stage. Of course, Atlanta and Mexico City will certainly be highlighted to produce a surprise, but don’t overlook tracks like Charlotte, Texas or Nashville to provide the next twist in the Cup season.
7. Could AJ Allmendinger point his way into the playoffs?
One of the more overlooked story lines in the first half of the season has been the performance of longtime veteran Allmendinger and the No. 16 Kaulig Racing team.
In the last few years, it’s no secret that Kaulig’s Cup ventures have lacked and their cars have been far from playoff-contending, but the organization appears to have found something in 2025.
Both Allmendinger and Ty Dillon have shown commendable speed through the first nine races. Allmendinger’s scored three top 10s this season and is coming off a ninth-place run at Bristol, where he also put down the Xfinity Fastest Lap to pocket an extra point in the standings. Meanwhile, Dillon has finished 16th or better in four of the first nine races in 2025.
Entering Talladega, Allmendinger is the first driver outside the playoff picture due to Berry’s win, but the 43-year-old wheelman trails Kyle Busch by just two points for the provisional 16th spot.
We aren’t far off from a stretch that includes three street and road courses (Allmendinger’s bread and butter) this summer, and with the top-10 speed shown on ovals, he may not need to depend on a road course to carry his way to a postseason bid.
8. Which winless past champion visits Victory Lane first?
Minus Larson, the five Cup winners so far this season have not won a Cup Series title. The active champions still chasing their first trophy of 2025 include aforementioned names like Elliott, Logano, Blaney, Keselowski and Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch.
From Daytona to the Southern 500, to the Kansas playoff race last season, Busch just couldn’t find the right side of luck when he was in contention to win those races.
Enter 2025 and fortune still hasn’t favored the two-time Cup champ as Busch led late at Circuit of The Americas before getting swarmed by Bell, Byron and Tyler Reddick in the final laps before Bell won his second of three races in a row. Busch has just two top 10s since and is coming off a 14th-place run at Bristol.
2023 champion Blaney looks to be the closest to finding Victory Lane. Blaney is a two-time Talladega winner and as one of the best drafting-track competitors at the Cup level, look for the No. 12 to strike pay dirt on Sunday.
9. Will Bubba Wallace keep pace with 23XI teammate Tyler Reddick all season long?
In 2024, Wallace narrowly missed out on the playoffs while Reddick punched a ticket to his first Championship 4 appearance. Nine races into 2025, both 23XI Racing drivers appear capable of making deep postseason runs.
Wallace scored back-to-back third-place finishes at Homestead and Martinsville that turned heads, and crew chief Charles Denike has seemingly gotten the No. 23 team focused for success.
Following Bristol, the No. 23 pit crew ranks first in the Cup Series according to NASCAR Insights while Wallace sits in the top 10 on pure speed and restart success.
It’s easy to capitalize on momentum early in the year, but it’s a taller task as the season begins inching close toward the postseason. That’s the point of the year where the contenders and pretenders begin to separate, but as of now, Wallace sits eighth in points, directly behind Reddick, who is seventh in points and 23 tallies ahead of his teammate.
