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NASCAR: The drivers in new places ahead of the 2025 Cup Series season

nick bromberg
Senior writer
·5-min read

There have been a lot of driver and team changes in NASCAR's Cup Series ahead of the 2025 season.

Nearly a third of the 36 chartered teams are new in some capacity after the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing and the expansion of teams like 23XI Racing, Front Row Motorsports and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing. Here's a look in numerical car order of the drivers in new places this season.

Gragson is entering his third season in the Cup Series. He’s entered each of those seasons with a different team. He lost his ride at Legacy Motor Club during the 2023 season because of a racist social media post but was hired for an open seat at Stewart-Haas Racing in 2024. However, SHR shut down at the end of last season. Front Row added Gragson as it expanded to three cars and he’ll look to build off a 2024 season that included seven top-10 finishes and an average finish of 19.6.

Dillon is back full-time in the Cup Series after he raced part-time in 2024. In his last full-time season in 2023, Dillon was 32nd in points and didn’t record a top-10 finish. Over 245 races, he has two top fives and seven top 10s.

2023 was also Allmendinger’s last full-time season in the Cup Series. He’s bounced back and forth between Cup and the Xfinity Series for Kaulig Racing and has won two Cup Series races and 16 Xfinity Series races since joining the team. Kaulig would be smart to ensure that Allmendinger has the best car possible for road course races.

Briscoe takes over for Martin Truex Jr. at Joe Gibbs Racing after four seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing. He won in 2022 and finished ninth in the standings. Last season, he won the regular-season finale at Darlington to get into playoffs. He ultimately finished 14th. At JGR, Briscoe is now with a team that should be capable of winning every single week unless the bizarre mistakes and underperformance that plagued Truex in his final seasons somehow carry over.

Another driver left without a ride because of SHR’s closure, Berry landed with the Wood Brothers after they moved on from Harrison Burton. You could do far worse than picking Berry as a playoff newcomer, too. His rookie season in the Cup Series last year was a bit of a roller coaster, but don’t forget that he had a top five and three top 10s over eight races as a sub at Hendrick Motorsports in 2023.

Herbst moves up from the Xfinity Series as 23XI expands to three cars. Herbst failed to win in any of his first three full-time seasons in the Xfinity Series before winning once in 2023 and twice in 2024. It’s fair to wonder what his Cup Series learning curve will be after he was consistently outrun by his teammates at JGR and SHR over those five seasons.

Smith is back for his second stint at Front Row Racing. The 2022 Truck Series champ got eight Cup Series starts with the team before signing with Trackhouse and racing at Spire in 2024. He had an absolutely miserable start to the season but there were signs of life in the second half with two top fives and four top-10 finishes.

The Haas Factory Team is using one of the charters leftover from Stewart-Haas Racing. Custer, the son of former SHR exec and current HFT team president Joe Custer, is back for his second Cup Series run after three seasons between 2020 and 2022. He won a race in 2020 and then won the 2023 Xfinity Series title before finishing second a year ago.

Ware started 67 Cup Series races over the 2021 and 2022 seasons with one top 10. He was arrested on assault charges against his ex-girlfriend in April of 2023, though the charges were dismissed after neither party cooperated with prosecutors. He was reinstated in late 2023 and raced nine times a season ago.

Preece enters his sixth full season in the Cup Series still looking for his first win. He spent the last two seasons at Stewart-Haas Racing and scored two top-five finishes and seven top 10s. Moving to RFK should be an upgrade for Preece, but there may be some early growing pains as the team expands to a third full-time car for the first time since 2016.

McDowell moves from Front Row to Spire after winning two races over the past four seasons. One of those victories was the 2021 Daytona 500 after the late crash that took out then-Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. McDowell also won at the Indianapolis road course in 2023. A season ago, McDowell had two top fives and seven top 10s while finishing 23rd in the points standings. Can he match that output in his first season at Spire?

The former Australian Supercars champ won his first Cup start in 2023 when he got a win at the Chicago street race. He ran full-time in the Xfinity Series in 2024 and won three road and street course races on the way to a 12th-place finish in the standings. Van Gisbergen will probably be a mid-pack driver on most ovals, but he’s a serious threat to win at Chicago or another road course.