TALLADEGA, Ala. — So many unknowns tend to arise in the course of 500 miles at Talladega Superspeedway, from field-thinning wrecks to strategy sidesteps to the occasional surprise winner. For this Sunday’s go-around, the shroud of uncertainty hits a little differently for NASCAR Cup Series teams and their crew chiefs.

A shake-up of the stage lengths has tilted the strategy table for Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), throwing a question mark into the equation for the first of two Cup Series stops this season at the 2.66-mile track. As is always the case, navigating the aerodynamic draft will be key for the 40-car field, but so will devising the best game plan for a new-look race, keeping in mind the emphasis on manufacturer teamwork and solidarity here.

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Previous Talladega events featured stage breaks that split the race roughly into thirds. In both races last year, Stage 1 ended at Lap 60, Stage 2 at Lap 120 and the final stage ran to the full distance of 188 laps. Sunday’s event, however, will go 98 laps before the first stage intermission, with two stages of 45 laps each to round it out.

NASCAR competition officials took the measure in an effort to stem the fuel-saving style of racing at a high-banked superspeedway designed for flat-out driving, setting up the likelihood of full-throttle action without the need to pit in Sunday’s second half. But the shift has also introduced new wrinkles to how teams might handle pit stops — how many and when?

“The way the stages are set up, the first stage has put in a potentially new style of fuel saving that we haven’t really seen before, but it really depends on what the masses do,” said Luke Lambert, crew chief for Carson Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. “It’s created some options for all the teams, so it’ll be interesting to see how people play it. The length of that first stage forces the teams to have more options than we typically have, which means that it’s going to be even more important that you know what the people you plan to work with are doing, and guys can commit. So I expect it to be a little bit more dynamic, though, just once people start showing their hand and seeing what others are doing.”

Some of those options include flipping the stage, a commonplace tactic for road-course events. Pitting early before a stage’s end can place teams up front when the rest of the field hits pit road during the break, but for teams hungry to make up deficits in the points, a better stage finish and the chance to gain ground in the standings may take priority.

“I think it’s new, right? It’s different,” said Richard Boswell, crew chief for Austin Dillon’s No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. “I think there’s multiple different strategies that you can play, whether or not you’re going to one-stop it or two-stop it and try to short the stage. But for me, it’s really just about, we need to try and stack some points up, and if we can get points in the stages, then we’re going to. If we can’t, then we’re going to try and position ourselves like we would for a road course and short it, and try and start the next stage toward the front. So it’s going to be unique. I think we were talking about it this week, like, what do we think? Are guys going to run it like a road course? Are they going to run it out to try and score stage points? 50% think it’s this way, and 50% think it’s this way, so I think it could be very, very split.”

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The length of the opening stage creates an interesting proposition for teams opting for a two-stop or one-stop plan for the opening 98-lap portion. Matt McCall, Spire’s Cup Series competition director, said those options will mostly be predicated on how teams attack Stage 1. A hard-running lead pack that breaks out to a quick early tempo would hurt the more fuel-conscious teams’ hopes of a one-stop stage, but the chance of a race-altering caution period early on could also force audibles across the board.

“The opportunity is there for one stop, for sure,” McCall said. “I really think it dictates on how the pace of the race starts, and which manufacturer is up front will probably dictate how that plays out. I think there’ll probably be a little cat-and-mouse to figure that out within the first five or 10 laps, but there is opportunity for that to happen. I think it’s probably a little bit less, but also well aware if a caution falls in the middle of it, that’ll change everything.”

One thing that’s unlikely to change is the reliance on manufacturer teamwork. Automakers tend to pit together in groups at Talladega to keep their aerodynamic-draft alignment intact; the differences in fuel economy and pit-road execution are where the running order can be jumbled up.

Boswell says the alterations to the stage-length procedures shouldn’t have a dramatic impact on how manufacturers team up.

“I think it’s more of the same,” Boswell said. “Most of the time, the manufacturers, they pit together one because they’re the same manufacturers, but their fuel economy is the same as well, right? So they know how hard they’re pushing, they’re getting data from their teammates. They know when those guys have to pit, and quite frankly, it’s the best information we have to pit with the best people that we can, so I don’t expect that to change.”