Four way-too-early storylines for the 2026 NASCAR season

It's been only one week since the checkered flag flew over the 2025 NASCAR season, but it's never too early to look ahead to the beginning of the next campaign. With less than 100 days until the 68th running of the Daytona 500, here are four way-too-early storylines for the 2026 NASCAR season. 

Will Denny Hamlin bounce back? 

There have been plenty of crushing championship defeats in NASCAR over the years, but Hamlin's loss at Phoenix last week is among the most heartbreaking in the sport's history. After coming the closest he ever has to a title and still not winning one, all eyes will be on the veteran driver in 2026. 

Hamlin will be 45 when he begins his 21st Cup Series season in February. In all likelihood, 2026 will be his second-to-last season of full-time Cup Series racing. There's no time for Hamlin to waste in his pursuit of a Cup Series championship, and it'll be interesting to see if the No. 11 team starts 2026 as strong as it finished 2025. 

What will NASCAR's new playoff format entail? 

All signs point to NASCAR revamping its championship format in 2026 and scrapping the elimination playoff format it has used since 2014. What the sanctioning body decides to replace the current format with is the bigger mystery. 

There appear to be multiple options on the table. Those include a similar format to the one currently in use that would see the championship not be decided in the finale, but in a four-race final round after two previous three-race playoff rounds. There's also a chance that NASCAR reverts either to the 10-race "Chase" format of 2004-13, or even a full-season format with no form of a postseason. Whatever format NASCAR lands on could determine how much momentum the sport as a whole has going into 2026. 

How does NASCAR's newest phenom perform? 

You couldn't create a better, more polished NASCAR prospect than 19-year-old Connor Zilisch, who won 10 races in the 2025 Xfinity Series season and will be a Cup Series rookie at Trackhouse Racing in 2026. By both statistics and the eye test, Zilisch is one of the most impressive young talents that NASCAR has ever seen. 

But even the brightest young stars of years past have burned out. The NASCAR Cup Series is the pinnacle of American auto racing, and no matter how good a driver is in the lower ranks of NASCAR, adjusting to the top level is no small feat. 

Perhaps the best recent example to compare Zilisch to is 2022 Xfinity Series champion Ty Gibbs. Gibbs won in his first Xfinity Series start in 2021 and won seven races en route to the 2022 championship. Since jumping up to the Cup Series full-time in 2023, however, he has zero wins in 108 starts. You can never judge a driver solely by their rookie season, but it'll be interesting to see how Zilisch adjusts to full-time Cup Series racing. 

Can Hendrick Motorsports stay on the mountaintop? 

There's not much left for Hendrick Motorsports — the winningest team in NASCAR history, which just won championship No. 15 with Kyle Larson last week — to accomplish in Cup Series competition. But after Larson picked up his second title, one has to wonder if HMS will fall victim to the championship hangover in 2026. 

Still, HMS has a two-time champion in Larson, a two-time Daytona 500 winner in William Byron and another champion in Chase Elliott driving for it. It'll be a part of the conversation throughout 2026, even if it doesn't win title 16.