The end of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, which served as a year-long celebration of the sport's 75th Anniversary, appropriately signaled the past is the past and that stock car racing now belongs to the stars of the present and future.
30-year-old Ryan Blaney became the newest Cup Series champion, prevailing over Kyle Larson, William Byron and Christopher Bell in the youngest Championship 4 in playoff history. With the title secured, Blaney assumed a champion's distinction and leadership within the sport that once belonged to recent retirees like Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch. With Harvick and Busch both hanging up their helmets in 2023, one era of NASCAR recedes further and further into the rearview mirror, putting the focus on what lies ahead for the sport.
Key storylines for 2024
Now the defending Cup Series champion, Ryan Blaney stands out among a group of current-day stars that have become the faces of NASCAR. That group includes Blaney's title rivals in Larson, Byron and Bell, Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace -- and one driver who holds the power to massively change both his own narrative as well as NASCAR's.
Chase Elliott, NASCAR's most popular driver and the 2020 Cup Series champion, enters the 2024 season coming off a 2023 season that went completely off the rails. After missing six races due to a leg injury suffered in an early-season snowboarding accident and another race due to a suspension for intentionally wrecking Denny Hamlin at Charlotte, Elliott missed the playoffs entirely and was shut out of the win column, marking his first winless season since 2017.
Elliott -- as well as teammate Alex Bowman, who also went winless and missed the playoffs following a midseason injury -- will look to reclaim his place as a perennial championship contender, and do so in Hendrick Motorsports' 40th anniversary season.
NASCAR's longest-tenured drivers are not to be forgotten either. Denny Hamlin leads the drivers who are longest in the tooth, and the 43-year-old enters this season still looking for his elusive first Cup championship despite winning three races a year ago. That position for Hamlin is the strongest of any veteran-most driver, as several of his contemporaries are trying to bounce back from vulnerable positions.
Martin Truex Jr. won last year's regular-season championship, only to completely fall apart in the playoffs and fail to make the Championship 4. 2022 Cup champion Joey Logano won just once early in the season, then became the first defending champion ever to be eliminated from the playoffs in the Round of 16. Kyle Busch was spared a spectacular collapse, but failed to win any races in the second half of the season after three victories in the first half and was eliminated in the Round of 12. And while Brad Keselowski's season was a successful one, the soon-to-be 40-year-old is still trying to end a nearly three-year winless drought.
Stock car racing's generational shift will greatly inform the direction of the sport's continuing new era, as the Next Gen car enters its third season of competition and NASCAR continues to find a happy balance between innovating for the modern world and delivering the traditional, distinct, and action-packed racing product that makes it like no other motorsport in the world.
Driver changes and what's new
The changes in car and driver for 2024 are headlined by a completely new look for Stewart-Haas Racing, which has made itself far younger after struggling over the last several seasons. Short track standout and Cup rookie Josh Berry takes over the No. 4 Ford for the retired Kevin Harvick, while Noah Gragson looks to bounce back from a disastrous rookie campaign in 2023 as the new driver of the No. 10 Ford, replacing Aric Almirola.
Berry's main competition for Rookie of the Year will come out of an ever-expanding Spire Motorsports, which has hired Carson Hocevar as the new driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet while also fielding a third car, No. 71, with Zane Smith behind the wheel in a partnership with Trackhouse Racing. Another young driver, Justin Haley, takes over the Rick Ware Racing No. 51 Ford after spending the past several seasons driving Kaulig Racing's No. 31, which will now be driven by 2019 Cup Rookie of the Year and 2021 Xfinity Series champion Daniel Hemric. Haley will be joined at RWR by Cup rookie Kaz Grala, who will run 25 of the 36-race schedule in the team's No. 15.
One team looking to rebound after a disappointing 2023 season is Legacy Motor Club, which has switched from Chevrolet to Toyota for 2024 and beyond. The team will feature two-time Southern 500 champion Erik Jones and newcomer John Hunter Nemechek while also fielding a third, part-time team for co-owner and newly-minted NASCAR Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson.
On the technical and competition side, NASCAR has introduced a revised rules package for most short tracks and road courses, which will feature a simplified rear diffuser with fewer vertical strakes to reduce front downforce in an effort to make cars race better in traffic. NASCAR has also made some changes to its qualifying format, specifically to how the starting lineup for most races on the schedule are set.
At all racetracks excluding superspeedways, the remaining qualifiers from Group A who do not advance to the final round of qualifying will now line up on the outside row from positions 11-40. The remaining Group B drivers will do the same on the inside row. The remaining 10 drivers who advance to the final round of qualifying will continue to line up in positions 1-10 based on the speeds in the final round.
Meanwhile, the 2024 schedule features a popular new venue for the Cup Series as well as the return of two old favorites. For the first time ever, the NASCAR Cup Series will race at the fan and competitor-favorite Iowa Speedway in June, a little more than a month before NASCAR heads to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the return of the Brickyard 400. In addition to Indianapolis' race date going back to its oval configuration after several years on the infield road course, Bristol Motor Speedway's spring race in March will once again be on concrete after three years as a dirt race.
Confirmed full-time Cup Series teams
#1 - Ross Chastain - Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Phil Surgen)
#2 - Austin Cindric - Team Penske Ford (Crew chief: Brian Wilson)
#3 - Austin Dillon - Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Keith Rodden)
#4 - Josh Berry (R) - Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (Crew chief: Rodney Childers)
#5 - Kyle Larson - Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Cliff Daniels)
#6 - Brad Keselowski - RFK Racing Ford (Crew chief: Matt McCall)
#7 - Corey LaJoie - Spire Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Ryan Sparks)
#8 - Kyle Busch - Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Randall Burdett)
#9 - Chase Elliott - Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Alan Gustafson)
#10 - Noah Gragson - Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (Crew chief: Drew Blickensderfer)
#11 - Denny Hamlin - Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (Crew chief: Chris Gabehart)
#12 - Ryan Blaney - Team Penske Ford (Crew Chief: Jonathan Hassler)
#14 - Chase Briscoe - Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (Crew chief: Richard Boswell)
#15 - Kaz Grala, Cody Ware & Riley Herbst - Rick Ware Racing Ford (Crew chief: Billy Plourde)
#16 - AJ Allmendinger, Josh Williams & Shane van Gisbergen - Kaulig Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Travis Mack)
#17 - Chris Buescher - RFK Racing Ford (Crew chief: Scott Graves)
#19 - Martin Truex Jr. - Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (Crew chief: James Small)
#20 - Christopher Bell - Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (Crew chief: Adam Stevens)
#21 - Harrison Burton - Wood Brothers Racing Ford (Crew chief: Jeremy Bullins)
#22 - Joey Logano - Team Penske Ford (Crew chief: Paul Wolfe)
#23 - Bubba Wallace - 23XI Racing Toyota (Crew chief: Bootie Barker)
#24 - William Byron - Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Rudy Fugle)
#31 - Daniel Hemric - Kaulig Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Trent Owens)
#34 - Michael McDowell - Front Row Motorsports Ford (Crew chief: Travis Peterson)
#38 - Todd Gilliland - Front Row Motorsports Ford (Crew chief: Ryan Bergenty)
#41 - Ryan Preece - Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (Crew chief: Chad Johnston)
#42 - John Hunter Nemechek - Legacy Motor Club Toyota (Crew chief: Ben Beshore)
#43 - Erik Jones - Legacy Motor Club Toyota (Crew chief: Dave Elenz)
#45 - Tyler Reddick - 23XI Racing Toyota (Crew chief: Billy Scott)
#47 - Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Mike Kelley)
#48 - Alex Bowman - Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Blake Harris)
#51 - Justin Haley - Rick Ware Racing Ford (Crew chief: Chris Lawson)
#54 - Ty Gibbs - Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (Crew chief: Chris Gayle)
#71 - Zane Smith (R) - Spire Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Stephen Doran)
#77 - Carson Hocevar (R) - Spire Motorsports Chevrolet (Crew chief: Luke Lambert)
#99 - Daniel Suarez - Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet (Crew chief: Matt Swiderski)
2024 NASCAR Cup Series schedule
(All times ET)
Sunday, Feb. 4 -- Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (non-points) -- 8 p.m. (FOX)
Thursday, Feb. 15 -- Daytona 500 Duels -- 7 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, Feb. 18 -- Daytona 500 -- 2:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, Feb. 25 -- Atlanta Motor Speedway -- 3 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, March 3 -- Las Vegas Motor Speedway -- 3:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, March 10 -- Phoenix Raceway -- 3:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, March 17 -- Bristol Motor Speedway -- 3:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, March 24 -- Circuit of the Americas -- 3:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, March 31 -- Richmond Raceway -- 7 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, April 7 -- Martinsville Speedway -- 3 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, April 14 -- Texas Motor Speedway -- 3:30 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, April 21 -- Talladega Superspeedway -- 3 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, April 28 -- Dover Motor Speedway -- 2 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, May 5 -- Kansas Speedway -- 3 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, May 12 -- Darlington Raceway -- 3 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, May 19 -- All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway (Non-points) -- 8 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, May 26 -- Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway -- 6 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, June 2 -- World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway -- 3:30 p.m. (FS1)
Sunday, June 9 -- Sonoma Raceway -- 3:30 p.m. (FOX)
Sunday, June 16 -- Iowa Speedway -- 7 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, June 23 -- New Hampshire Motor Speedway -- 2:30 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, June 30 -- Nashville Superspeedway -- 3:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, July 7 -- Chicago Street Course -- 4:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, July 14 -- Pocono Raceway -- 2:30 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, July 21 -- Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- 2:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Aug. 11 - Richmond Raceway -- 6 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, Aug. 18 -- Michigan International Speedway -- 2:30 p.m. (USA)
Saturday, Aug. 24 -- Daytona International Speedway -- 7:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Sept. 1 -- Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway -- 6 p.m. (USA)
NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs
Round of 16
Sunday, Sept. 8 -- Atlanta Motor Speedway -- 3 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, Sept. 15 -- Watkins Glen International -- 3 p.m. (USA)
Saturday, Sept. 21 -- Bristol Motor Speedway Night Race -- 7:30 p.m. (USA)
Round of 12
Sunday, Sept. 29 -- Kansas Speedway -- 3 p.m. (USA)
Sunday, Oct. 6 -- Talladega Superspeedway -- 2 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Oct. 13 -- Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval -- 2 p.m. (NBC)
Round of 8
Sunday, Oct. 20 -- Las Vegas Motor Speedway -- 2:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Oct. 27 -- Homestead-Miami Speedway -- 2:30 p.m. (NBC)
Sunday, Nov. 3 -- Martinsville Speedway -- 2 p.m. (NBC)
Championship Race
Sunday, Nov. 10 -- Phoenix Raceway -- 3 p.m. (NBC)
