Jesse Love Joins Cup Series Field for COTA; Full Entry List

NASCAR has officially released the preliminary entry list for Sunday's DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), the third event of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series campaign and the first of four scheduled road course events.

Among those on the entry list for Sunday's event in Austin, Texas, are the 36 drivers who are piloting Chartered Entries full-time at NASCAR's top-level this season. These cars are guaranteed a spot in the field for every event in 2026, and would be even if there were more entries than spots available in the field.

Here are the 36 Chartered Entries that are locked into the field for the 2026 DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne, but they will still have to qualify for their starting spots in a group qualifying session taking place on Saturday, February 28.

All 36 of the entries listed below have announced full-time drivers for the season, so this list will not change on a week-to-week basis, barring some kind of extenuating circumstance.

Car	Driver	Team	Make
1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford
3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
4	Noah Gragson	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Ford
7	Daniel Suarez	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
8	Kyle Busch	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
9	Chase Elliiott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
10	Ty Dillon	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet
11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford
16	AJ Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet
17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford
19	Chase Briscoe	Joe Gibbs Racing	Ford
20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
21	Josh Berry	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford
22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford
23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota
24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
34	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
35	Riley Herbst	23XI Racing	Toyota
38	Zane Smith	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
41	Cole Custer	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet
42	John Hunter Nemechek	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
43	Erik Jones	LEGACY MOTOR CLUB	Toyota
45	Tyler Reddick	23XI Racing	Toyota
47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Hyak Motorsports	Chevrolet
48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
60	Ryan Preece	RFK Racing	Ford
71	Michael McDowell	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
77	Carson Hocevar	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
88	Connor Zilisch (R)	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet
97	Shane van Gisbergen	Trackhouse Racing	Chevrolet

Open Entries

There are 37 drivers on the preliminary entry list for the DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne, which means that alongside the 36 Chartered Entries that take the green flag each week, there is one brave soul who will join them.

Defending NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Jesse Love is entered in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series event at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), driving the No. 33 C4 Ultimate Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Richard Childress Racing.

Love made his debut in the NASCAR Cup Series last Spring at Bristol Motor Speedway with Richard Childress Racing. Throughout the course of the year, the Menlo Park, California-native made five starts between RCR and Beard Motorsports, where he recorded a best finish of 24th-place in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Circuit of The Americas is the first of "several" scheduled NASCAR Cup Series starts for Love this season, which will at least include the Spring event at Talladega with sponsorship from 1-800-PACK-RAT.

Car	Driver	Team	Manu
33	Jesse Love	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet

The DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne will take place on Sunday, March 1 at 3:00 PM ET on FOX, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.