Five NASCAR Cup Drivers Quietly Thriving To Start 2025
While drivers like Christopher Bell, William Byron, and Josh Berry have very clearly found success to kick off the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, there are also quite a few drivers that are laying in the weeds and finding some quiet success in the first five weeks of the season.
For each driver-team combination, the definition of success can vary; for some of the larger teams a successful start to the season means a trip to Victory Lane, while others are focused on recording consistent top 10s, top-15, or even top-20s. These goals depend on several things, including a driver’s experience level, a team’s budgetary restrictions, or even just where a team stands on the NASCAR Cup Series totem pole.
#42 John Hunter Nemechek – LEGACY MOTOR CLUB
John Hunter Nemechek made some headlines last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his Backstreet Boys-sponsored Toyota Camry XSE. While the driver would rather the story be about his performance, that aspect of the season hasn’t been too shabby either.
In the first five events of the year, Nemechek has produced four top 20 results – with his worst finish of the year being a 22nd-place finish at Circuit of The Americas. Highlighted by a top five result in the season-opening DAYTONA 500, Nemechek has been able to maintain solid runs throughout the season, thus far, landing him 15th in NASCAR Cup Series point standings.
That in itself is a significant improvement for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, who spent all of last season struggling in its first season partnered with Toyota GAZOO Racing. In the entire 36-race campaign last season, Nemechek only managed to score seven finishes inside the top 20.
If Nemechek, a multi-time winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, is able to continue these consistent finishes, and potentially gain a little more on the top end of things, then the No 42 Toyota Camry XSE could find itself as a contender to make the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in 2025.
That would be a MAJOR step forward for the organization, which is now primarily owned by Jimmie Johnson.
#47 Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. – HYAK Motorsports
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. hasn’t necessarily had a “quiet” start to his 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, seemingly finding trouble in one way or another just about every single week. However, that’s not the end of the story for the newly rebranded HYAK Motorsports team, which has found a way to make incredible recoveries nearly every week.
In the opening five NASCAR Cup Series events of the campaign, Stenhouse has only finished inside the top-15 once – a fifth-place result at Atlanta Motor Speedway – but throughout the season, the remaining four weeks, his finishes have ranged between 18th and 21st, keeping the No. 47 Chevrolet rather consistent.
Following Sunday’s event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Stenhouse sits 16th in NASCAR Cup Series point standings, and as things run, is the final driver that would advance into the NASCAR Cup Series post-season if it were to begin today. But, with several competitive drivers and teams below the cutline right now, the Olive Branch, Mississippi-native will have to do more than have solid top 20 runs.
It’ll definitely take some more top five and top-10 finishes, and potentially even a victory, to put the No. 47 HYAK Motorsports Chevrolet in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, this year – something Stenhouse and Co. have shown to be capable of in the past.
#71 Michael McDowell – Spire Motorsports
Well... Michael McDowell WAS having a quiet start to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, until he went and won the pole for Sunday's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway -- the first pole position at NASCAR's top-level for Spire Motorsports.
After spending so many years with Front Row Motorsports, McDowell's new beginning with Spire Motorsports is off to a hot start, as he and crew chief Travis Peterson started the year by clicking off three consecutive finishes of 13th or better.
The series' fourth and fifth events of the season -- Phoenix and Las Vegas -- showed just as much promise for McDowell, with a significant uptick in raw speed across the board for the organization, shown in back-to-back top-10 qualifying efforts. However, in-race issues kept the Spire Motorsports driver from getting the finish he ultimately deserved.
Despite some minor hiccups over the last two weeks, McDowell and the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet remain very much in contention to make the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, sitting 14th in points, three points above the cutline.
There's no question that the speed is present for Spire Motorsports, who has had stellar runs across the five-race campaign with both Michael McDowell and Carson Hocevar, now it's just about harnessing it to drive into Victory Lane.
#35 Riley Herbst - 23XI Racing
Even though he’s currently sitting 27th in NASCAR Cup Series points, Riley Herbst has had a pretty solid beginning to his rookie campaign at NASCAR’s top-level, driving the No. 35 Toyota Camry XSE, a third entry for 23XI Racing.
Herbst is in a mano-a-mano fight for Rookie of The Year (ROTY) honors with three-time Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen, and after two superspeedways, a road course, and a short-oval, the Las Vegas, Nevada-native is currently seven points ahead in the fight.
While the opening five events of the NASCAR Cup Series campaign hasn’t been super flashy, the results have been relatively consistent, and for a driver learning the quirks of the seventh-generation racecar while also adapting to a brand-new organization, that’s all you can really ask for.
Herbst started the season with three consecutive 17th-place finishes, and after a detour from the solid finishes at Phoenix – after getting caught up in a massive accident – the 26-year-old driver returned to form at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finishing 19th.
RELATED: Riley Herbst Enjoying Transition to NASCAR Cup Series
The consistent top-20 finishes are a great first step for the driver of the No. 35, but there will be another step required soon, one that earns the team more points – whether that’s through finishing top-10 in stages, or collecting better overall finishes.
But, just five races into his full-time NASCAR Cup Series career, Herbst seems to be finding his footing.
#77 Carson Hocevar – Spire Motorsports
Once Carson Hocevar, crew chief Luke Lambert, and the entire No. 77 Spire Motorsports team are able to figure out just how to finish a NASCAR Cup Series event where they’ve been running, there will no longer be anything quiet about the team’s season.
The 22-year-old driver has been a force to be reckoned with throughout the opening five NASCAR Cup Series events of the season, collecting top five starting positions in back-to-back events at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) and Phoenix, before finishing a disappointing 13th and 36th in back-to-back weeks.
For Hocevar, the sequence of disappointing finishes continues at Las Vegas, where are running inside the top 10 late in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400, the No. 77 Chevrolet suffered damage in a pit road incident, which forced the team to make a green-flag pit stop, dropkicking the team back to 30th.
Hocevar is a fast driver, and lately he’s had fast cars – so it’s likely only a matter of time before things fully work out for the Portage, Michigan-native, but with just one top-10 in the opening five events of the season (a runner-up finish at Atlanta), the points are slipping away pretty quickly.
Homestead-Miami Speedway was a strong racetrack for the No. 77 team last season, finishing ninth after running inside the top-five at times throughout the day. For Hocevar, it’s another opportunity to gain some valueable points and make an impression on his NASCAR Cup Series competitors.
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Joseph Srigley covers NASCAR for TobyChristie.com, Racing America, and OnSI, and is the owner of the #SrigleyStats brand. With a higher education in the subjects of business, mathematics, and data analytics, Joseph is able to fully understand the inner workings of the sport through multiple points of perspective.
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