Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway marks the midpoint of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season. With 12 points worth of NASCAR stats to analyze, now is the perfect time to give out some awards at this stage of the season.
Let’s take a look at our midseason NASCAR awards ahead of the Coca-Cola 600.
Best Driver: Tyler Reddick
Who else will receive this honor besides Tyler Reddick? Has the No. 45 team had any luck this season? Definitely. What can’t be denied is the results and how Redick consistently finds a way to finish at the front of the field. He starts (6.6 average starting position, first in the Cup Series) as strong as he finishes (5.7 average finishing position), and he has finished in the top five in 66.7 percent of his races with a top 10 finish in 75 percent of his races. With a 129-point lead at the end of May, Reddick seemed destined to win the regular season title.
Best Team: Joe Gibbs Racing
23XI Racing needs a little consideration here, but Joe Gibbs Racing has clearly been the best team in NASCAR so far. Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs have both won this season, and JGR is the only team with two drivers in the top six points leaders. Additionally, Hamlin (624) and teammate Christopher Bell (325) are first and third in laps, with Tye in 11th (78). While it’s been a relatively quiet season for Chase Briscoe in his first year with JGR, the driver of the No. 19 car ranks eighth in average finishing position (13.0) over the last six races with three top-10 finishes.
Biggest Surprise: Ty Gibbs
Ty Gibbs remains one of the least popular drivers in NASCAR, and during the year a lot of questions were asked about whether he would prove if he was really meant to drive the No. 54 car. Let us tell you that the results of this season speak volumes about the improvements made by the 23-year-old player. In 2025, Gibbs had five top-fives, 10 top-10s and recorded an average finishing position of 17.86. Through 12 races this season, he already has six top-five finishes and is on pace to break his career high (eight) in the Cup Series. Similarly, he has finished in the top-10 eight times and will look to surpass his previous season’s best points tally (12 in 2024). Additionally, Gibbs recorded his first Cup Series win, capping a seven-week stretch of top-10 finishes, which has dramatically improved his average finishing position in the Cup to the sixth-best mark (13.8).
Biggest Disappointment: Joey Logano
A year ago we would have put Kyle Busch on this list, but he avoids it this season because of how low the expectation level has now reached for Richard Childress Racing and the No. 8 team. So, Joey Logano is left as the biggest disappointment in the NASCAR Cup Series this season. Logano has had the same number of top-10 DNFs this season (three) with an average finishing position (22.417), which ranks 26th in the Cup Series, behind AJ Allmendinger (19.5), Zane Smith (19.9) and Erik Jones (20.0). Since Darlington, Logano’s average finishing position is 26.5, and he is third at Martinsville and seventh at Bristol. Logano has no chance to challenge for the championship this year, and the best-case scenario might be him finishing outside the top-10 in The Chase.
Best Pit Crew: No. 20 Team
A lot has gone wrong for Christopher Bell this season, some of which is out of his control. JGR and Bell are feeling pretty good right now about how amazing the No. 20 pit crew is. NASCAR.com rated them as the No. 1 pit crew entering the All-Star Race, and the numbers support it. Bell’s pit crew has the second-fastest average pit stop of the season (10.52 seconds), with the fastest average pit stop of the season (8.92 seconds). Additionally, according to PitCrewRank.com, only nine of 47 pit stops have taken 11.6 seconds or longer, tying the No. 20 crew for first in PCR (1,072).
Worst Pit Crew: No. 8 Team
Kyle Busch’s winning streak in the Cup Series has reached triple digits. The future Hall of Famer deserves much of the blame for what happened, with his struggle to adjust to the Next Gen car and his anger playing a role in the conflicts that led him to perform better. What can’t be ignored is how poorly the No. 8 pit crew has performed this season. Busch’s pit crew ranked 35th in PCR with a 12.22 average pit time. While Bell only required pit stops of 11.6-plus seconds 19.2 percent of the time, the No. 8 team required 12-plus seconds in 17 of 49 qualifying pit stops, or 34.7 percent of the time. We wouldn’t predict Busch winning a Cup race in the near future.
RELATED: Insiders reveal which team Kyle Busch could race for in 2027
Most Improved Driver: Carson Hocevar
Carson Hocevar is the next superstar NASCAR has been waiting for. The 23-year-old’s first career Cup Series win at Talladega and the celebration that followed was perhaps the best moment of the Cup Series this season. What’s really different with the driver of the No. 77 car is how he’s channeling his aggression and racing smarter, which results in more consistency in the end. Hocevar (14.6) currently leads William Byron (16.0), Kyle Larson (17.3), Chase Briscoe (17.5) and Christopher Bell (17.8) in average finishing position. He’s already set career highs for top-fives (three), and he’ll break personal bests for top-10s (nine) and laps led (131) in just a few weeks. Keep in mind, Hocevar is having all this success while overcoming bottom 10 pit crews.
#Top #Drivers #Biggest #Disappointments #Worst #Pit #Crews
