NASCAR insider speculates on Kyle Busch RCR future after Daytona, Atlanta frustration

Kyle Busch, perhaps more than any driver in the field, needed to get off to a fast start in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. The Daytona 500 pole was nice, but it ended with a middling 15th-place finish.

Busch then crashed out of Sunday’s race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta with 36 laps remaining in Stage 2. He was credited with a P34 finish at Atlanta. Just two races into the season, Busch finds himself 24th in the points standings, already in a deep hole in the race to make the Chase.

The 40-year-old is currently set to become a free agent after the 2026 season. Based on what he’s seen thus far, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic doesn’t see anything trending in the right direction for both Busch and Richard Childress Racing.

“We’ve had this conversation so much about Kyle Busch and how they start the year. He’s a free agent, Richard Childress Racing needs to prove something to him, he’s gotta prove something to Richard Childress Racing, and they have not had a good start to the year,” Bianchi said on The Teardown. “I know they won the pole at Daytona, sure, that’s a pole at Daytona, whatever. That’s not gonna dictate whether Kyle Busch stays at Richard Childress Racing.

“Maybe I’m reading too much into this but just listening to the radio transmissions, you go back to Daytona and there was frustration on the radio. There was frustration on the radio today, like, it’s just not trending in the right direction. This is not the start either of these sides needed. It feels like it’s kind of slowly going downhill.”

Kyle Busch and the winless streak

Busch is a 63-time winner in Cup and a two-time champion in the series. Victory Lane was once a place you saw Busch a lot. These days, Victory Lane seems far, far away for the future Hall of Famer.

His last victory came in June 2023 at Gateway. He’s since been on the decline, though the question is whether it’s Busch abilities that are fading or RCR that’s holding him back. It could very well be a combination of both, as Busch is now in his 40s, an age where a majority of drivers start to see a drop in performance, while RCR has struggled to consistently build winning race cars in the Next Gen era.

One thing is for sure and it’s that the frustration is only growing inside the No. 8 team. Busch spoke often on the radio of his issues with his No. 8 Chevrolet at Daytona and Atlanta. Still, he thought Atlanta had potential for a good finish, until Noah Gragson made contact with him down the backstretch and sent him spinning.

“I didn’t get the best of exits off of two there, but when I drifted out to the wall I was trying to get back straight and he never checked up, just rammed me as hard as he could to get me back going, to get my momentum back going again,” Busch told FOX Sports. “But when a guy’s a little out of shape you’ve got to give him a second to collect it before you just ram him or at least try to check up and push gently. But, yeah, that’s kids these days.”