NASCAR Cup Series is producing rare number of winners so far in 2025

Nine races into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, only five drivers (William Byron, Christopher Bell, Josh Berry, Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin) have won a race.

The five winners through nine races to begin a season are the fewest since 1992, per NASCAR.com, when there were only four (Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, Alan Kulwicki and Mark Martin).

That can be attributed to multiple things, but there are two main reasons that the lack of different winners has come to fruition this season.

Now that drivers and teams have three years of experience with NASCAR's Next Gen Car, which debuted in 2022, some have figured out what works at most tracks and which setups to bring to the track each week. 

When the car was new for everyone in 2022, the parody was a talking point all season. Eight drivers went to victory lane during the first nine races. Overall, the 2022 season featured 19 different winners, tying the modern-era record set in 2001.

In 2023, seven drivers won the first nine races of the season, while only six did so in 2024. As drivers and teams have become more familiar with the car, the top organizations have consistently gone to victory lane more often and experienced greater success.

Yes, track position has become as vital as it ever has due to the car's inability to make passes on most tracks. That has become the major elephant in the room, but it hasn't stopped organizations like Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing from taking it to the field most weeks.

The other reason for the lack of winners goes back to who has figured out the car and what they need to be successful. Four of the season's five winners, Byron, Bell, Larson and Hamlin, drive for Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing and are arguably four of the best drivers in the series right now. 

Byron only has one win in the Daytona 500, but his consistency (a series-best 9.1 average finish) has him atop the standings. Bell won three races in a row earlier in the season and currently has three straight top 10s.

Larson has wins at 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway and half-mile Bristol Motor Speedway, where he led a whopping 411 of the 500 laps. Hamlin did much of the same at Martinsville when he led 274 of 400 laps before going back-to-back the following week at Darlington.

All four drivers are in the top four of the standings and are only separated by a total of 42 points. Larson (15), Byron (12), Bell (11) and Hamlin (10) also have the most wins since the inception of the car in 2022, so it should not come as a shock that they have found success this season.

The last time four drivers dominated at this rate was in 2018 when Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr. and Joey Logano won 12 of the first 14 races and 23 of the 36 that season. 

While only nine races have been completed so far in 2025, similarities are evident, and so is the car's overall success. 

As talented as all four drivers are, don't be surprised if they rival the success of the 2018 group and continue their unprecedented start to 2025.

Talladega's unpredictable nature on Sunday and a versatile schedule during the summer months could throw some obstacles their way, but if the first nine races are any indication, expect more wins to come their way as cars return to the track.