Now that the dust has settled on a busy NASCAR offseason, the teams appear ready to hit the high banks of Daytona for the first official race of the 2026 Cup Series season.
As such, Jey and I reconvened to discuss our expectations for each team in a new column titled From Ceiling to Floor where each of us will write down what we think each team’s highest (but reasonable) expectations should be while the other takes a stab at each team’s lowest (but also reasonable) expectations.
The two of us will convene at the end to decipher what each team’s most likely outcomes will be when the season draws to a close at Homestead.
The next team on our list for this column is 23XI Racing, right after we released the first part of this series talking about Hendrick Motorsports and followed it up with our entry covering Team Penske.
We followed those entries up with 23XI Racing and Richard Childress Racing, and today, we continue with Joe Gibbs Racing.
The Ceiling – Jey
Joe Gibbs Racing racked up an incredible 2025 season and were mere laps from winning the driver’s title before losing it on a pit call and an overtime restart. Outside of Chris Gabehart quietly leaving the team, most of JGR’s core staff remained as JGR looks to reload and take aim at another title run in 2026.
Denny Hamlin comes into 2026 and motivated as ever after winning six races in 2025 while besting NASCAR in the courtroom in the offseason. Hamlin should compete for a title as the end of his career draws ever closer. Christopher Bell looks to cement his place as the future of TRD and recreate the success he and Adam Stevens had at the beginning of 2025.
Chase Briscoe and James Small’s first season together started slow but blossomed into a Championship Four run in the latter half of the season with three wins including a defense of his 2024 Southern 500 victory. They intend to build on this in 2026 as Ty Gibbs looks to finally lock down the first win of his career.
Verdict: 7 wins; Hamlin, Bell, Briscoe, and Gibbs make the playoffs
The Floor – Tanner
The departure of Chris Gabehart should trouble JGR fans. A man that had his hands on over 30 wins in his time at the Cup Series level leaves, and it’s getting messy. While I believe Denny Hamlin and Chris Gayle will be fine, I fear that Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe might suffer.
Bell started 2025 off hot by winning three races in a row from Atlanta through Phoenix, but as the season drew to a close, Bell made his agitation known with Stevens approach to the final 10 weeks. I figure that could bleed into this season as Stevens attempts to optimize the 20 team’s performance for premier consistency.
Briscoe and Small must prove to themselves and the general public that their 2025 wasn’t a fluke, and I believe they could struggle to start the season once again, never getting out of a feedback loop of bad results. Ty Gibbs is liable to continue struggling to compete at the Cup Series level, missing the Chase.
Verdict: 4 wins; Hamlin, Bell, Briscoe make the Chase
Most Likely Outcome – 6 wins; Hamlin, Bell, Briscoe make the Chase
A 13-win campaign will be hard to replicate, especially with this lawsuit and Gabehart’s departure looming over the whole season. That said, they remain Toyota’s factory team; as such, we expect them to remain in the mix at most tracks among their four drivers.
Hamlin looks poised to stay on his 2025 heater and could score up to three wins while one of Briscoe or Bell scores multiple wins. If we have to make an estimate, we suspect it will be Bell while Briscoe notches a lone victory somewhere along the way.
Ty Gibbs is a complete unknown at this rate, and we do not suspect that he will suddenly pop up and start winning races. This could be a good learning year to Gibbs where he learns to be consistent, the building blocks to consistent contention.
(Top Photo Credit: Joe Gibbs Racing on Twitter)
pitboxpress.com 