NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers competing for the 2026 championship after Tyler Reddick’s win at Circuit of The Americas — an unprecedented third straight victory to open the season — and before Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell enters as the defending winner.
Analysis: We’re witnessing history here, folks. Reddick has gotten off to as blazing a start as we’ve ever seen — while perhaps already building a potentially insurmountable and crucial regular-season points lead under this revamped Chase format. If that buffer, already at 70 points, continues to grow after Phoenix — where he has a 9.0 average finish in the last four spring races — and this team maintains any semblance of this pace, look out.
Analysis: A “thin” P7 for Elliott at COTA, with minimal stage points and no laps led, but it was enough to keep him afloat the “everyone-but-Tyler Reddick” tier atop the standings in a near tie with Bubba Wallace. His name doesn’t get brought up as often among the Phoenix standouts, but he’s certainly a sleeper to watch that could break through this weekend — seven of his last 11 starts there yielded a top 10, including a win.
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Analysis: Blaney continued flexing his unsung road-course chops once again at COTA, leading 11 laps en route to a top 10, and he looks to be every bit the championship contender this year as we’ve come to expect from him annually. Phoenix is where it could all come together for his first win of 2026, as it’s been a lights-out Penske track this decade — and he happens to have won there just a few short months ago in the 2025 finale.
Analysis: How big are wins now? Larson finished just five spots short of race victor Reddick, yet scored 30 fewer points. Larson still had a solid day, but it’s clear that Victory Lane carries even more added weight each week now. Larson will likely take plenty of trips there himself this year, and it could come this weekend at Phoenix, where he’s been one of the best since taking the reins of the No. 5 Chevrolet.
Analysis: Hamlin has been on an unbelievable heater as a team owner, and things are starting to simmer for him as a driver, too, with his first top 10 of the year coming at COTA. The fact that he’s only won at Phoenix twice in his career comes as a surprise; he’s consistently in the mix there and owns a 10.5 average finish over an incredible 41 races. He may also be returning with a bit of extra motivation from how the last trip went, too.
Analysis: If not for the shadow cast by his teammate’s radiance to open 2026, Wallace’s sizzling start would be generating all the headlines, but it’s still worth acknowledging that before 2026, Wallace had never been as high as second in points — and he has now remained there for consecutive weeks. In other words … perfect time for a heat check! If the sun is going to keep shining on Wallace in the desert, it will massively buck his history there, with just three top 10s, a 20.7 average finish and four total laps led across 16 starts.
Analysis: Just a single lap led and no top 10s for the preseason champion pick of many, but no cause for concern just yet — Byron could be about to clean up over the coming weeks. A winner at each of the next four tracks, he’s been pouring on the laps led at Phoenix the past several years as well, and it’s only a matter of time before he adds a second win there.
Analysis: A mechanical mishap ended Briscoe’s day at COTA, an unfortunate end to a potentially competitive day (eight laps led) that resulted in a last-place finish. He’s becoming so well-rounded that a rebound is never too far away, however, and the one-time Phoenix winner would love to right the ship there after a few recent rough races in the desert.
Analysis: A decent start to the season with plenty of room for improvement for Logano, who is in the mix near the top of the standings but led no laps and scored no stage points at COTA. The three-time champ has, of course, been one of the best at Phoenix over the past decade, pouring on four wins there since 2016.
Analysis: It’s a slow climb back up the standings, but Bell’s 34 points at COTA nearly doubled his output from the first two races as we’re now about to get into the thick of it. He enters as the defending winner … again … and should once again be in the mix to defend his Phoenix win like he was this past weekend in Austin.
Analysis: Say what you want, but we’re a trio of races into the season, and SVG has led in all three of them, while we’re now in March and he’s fifth in points. He’s clearly going to be a factor this year, and he appeared to be significantly more comfortable at Phoenix last fall than Phoenix last spring, so look for more continued improvement this weekend.
Analysis: Walking away with a P35 at a track you’ve won at after out-qualifying your teammate SVG on a road course and picking up a Stage 1 win is … tough. Phoenix, where he had finishes of first, second and third from 2022-23, could in theory be a rebound spot for Chastain, but he’s finished outside the top 10 in three straight there.
Analysis: Buescher not walking away with a solid finish at a road course in the Next Gen era just seems weird, and it feels like he’s yet to really have a proper result that matched his in-race competitiveness. Phoenix was a tough track for him early in his career, but something has clicked for him over the past five or so races, and he should be able to squeeze at least a top 10 out of Sunday.
Analysis: Like his RFK teammate, Preece has felt like he’s put in better showings than the sum of his results so far, which will likely net out positively over the long haul of the season. Though he was P9 there in the fall and led 34 laps last spring, Phoenix will still be a bit of a test for him as those are his only such metrics there across 13 starts.
Analysis: We knew Allmendinger was good at road courses, but did you know he was jump-10-spots-in-the-standings-good at road courses? He did just that on Sunday with a lucrative, 43-point P9. Will he keep it going at Phoenix, inarguably his most consistent track? Perhaps, but it’s only his most consistent because he’s netted a middling 19.4 as both his average start and average finish.
Analysis: Three races with his new team, three races inside the top 10 in points for Suárez, who is off to a solid start at Spire Motorsports. Phoenix could be a challenge, though. While he’s had a couple of decent blips over 18 starts, he owns just four top 10s and has never led a lap.
Analysis: Three top-20 finishes, including a Daytona 500 top five and gutting out a full race in the brutal Austin, Texas, heat, have been remarkably impressive in the physical condition that the 42-year-old Keselowski is in, which makes one think he could actually be extremely competitive once he’s at full health. A first win at Phoenix this weekend could feel like a bit of a long shot, but after a runner-up there last fall — and the 2012 champ’s clear desire to compete — never say never.
Analysis: Hocevar spun out at the very end and missed out on a few extra points, but COTA overall wasn’t a banner weekend for the young No. 77 driver, compared to his otherwise roaring start to 2026. Phoenix hasn’t gone tremendously well for him thus far, either, with just one finish better than 19th and a 23.2 average result in five starts.
Analysis: McDowell remains one of the best at maximizing his spots, and he continues to round out his skills across the other tracks, as well as he really takes the reins on his leader-in-the-shop role at Spire. There’s perhaps no better example of that than his home track in Arizona, where he has three top 10s in 30 starts, and they’ve all come in the past five races.
Analysis: Gibbs more than tripled the amount of points he scored in the first two races with his COTA output, tossing in a Stage 2 win for good measure. He could keep it rolling, too — we’ve seen Gibbs look great in the spring race at Phoenix as recently as 2024, when he led 57 laps from the front row and finished third.