With a massive free agent class staring down the barrel of a pen, Jey and I got together and decided to discuss which drivers will be inking new deals and switching seats before the green flag waves for the 2027 Daytona 500.
To be clear, driver contracts are not publicly available like they are in the NFL, NBA, and other major sports leagues, so this series relies a lot on the reporting of insiders and what we have personally heard through the grapevine.
Before talking a bit about how we intend to go about the structure of this new series, let’s look at the different chartered cars that do not have a driver contracted to drive them next year.
List of Drivers Reportedly Without a Contract for 2027
- #2 – Austin Cindric
- #4 – Noah Gragson
- #7 – Daniel Suárez
- #8 – Kyle Busch
- #10 – Ty Dillon
- #17 – Chris Buescher
- #21 – Josh Berry
- #22 – Joey Logano
- #34 – Todd Gilliland
- #35 – Riley Herbst
- #38 – Zane Smith
- #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
- #43 – Erik Jones
- #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #48 – Alex Bowman
- #60 – Ryan Preece
- #71 – Michael McDowell
Yes, you read that correctly: nearly half of the full-time entries in the NASCAR Cup Series could be up for grabs, and on top of all of these, a third entry for Legacy Motor Club is expected to open up before the start of next season.
Now, let’s get into how Jey and I will be formatting this series.
First, the two of us explain the recent history of the the car available. For instance, the RCR No. 8 won three races in the first 15 events in 2023 and have been relatively pedestrian since then. RCR hired Jim Pohlman to supplant Randall Burnett prior to the 2026 season due to Pohlman’s success with Justin Allgaier in the O’Reilly Series and Pohlman’s ties to RCR.
That leads to us giving each car a grade based off of a few factors: recent performance (since NextGen), individual team makeup, and strength of organization.
After that, we’ll examine a scenario where the team retains the driver still in the car for 2027. In the event that Joey Logano retains the No. 22 with Team Penske, we would discuss how we expect his 2027 to look as well as a glimpse into the future.
Once that section concludes, we begin diving into the free agent field and focusing on which drivers might be on the shortlist for the seat being discussed.
The first driver we will chat about is the one we think has the highest chance of making the jump to that seat. Sometimes, this will be the incumbent driver, so this section could be very brief or erased entirely.
The next driver up for discussion will be a reasonable mid-range option for the team to acquire. While we expect picks that fall into this category to be more of a bridge option before bringing in a prospect later on down the line, we could also see them sticking with the new team for some time, similar to Chase Briscoe’s tenure with Joe Gibbs Racing.
The final driver to cover will be a dark horse option for a ride. These are drivers from the lower series (or perhaps even elsewhere) that could be a high-risk, high-reward pickup for a race team, much like Kurt Busch moving from the Truck Series to the Cup Series in 2000.
At last, we will conclude with the Most Likely Outcome, a hallmark of our From Ceiling to Floor 2026 expectations series we did for each Cup team. This represents the move we feel like is most likely to take place, whether that’s an actual move or staying put.
With that in mind, we should have our first edition of this series out later this week where we discuss the future of the third 23XI Racing car currently piloted by Riley Herbst.
(Top Photo Credit: Logan Riely/Getty Images)
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