8 drivers earn best finish of 2024 at Talladega
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Eight drivers earned their best finish of 2024 at Talladega, including five drivers who had their best career finish or their first top-10 finish of 2024.
Noah Gragson: 3rd
Noah Gragson finished third behind Tyler Reddick and Brad Keselowski and ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who all also earned their best finish of 2024.
Coming into Sunday, Gragson’s best career finish in the NASCAR Cup Series was fifth in August 2022 at Daytona International Speedway with Beard Motorsports in their No. 62 Chevrolet.
Gragson’s best career finish Sunday at Talladega puts him at four top-10 finishes in 49 starts. Three of those top-10s have come this year.
Anthony Alfredo: 6th
Two spots behind Gragson was that familiar No. 62 Chevrolet with Anthony Alfredo at the helm in sixth. Like Gragson, Alfredo also earned his best NASCAR Cup Series finish of his career Sunday.
Alfredo now has two top-10 finishes in 40 starts. His other top-10 finish came during a rain-shortened race at Talladega in October 2021 when he competed full-time in the Cup Series.
Six full-time drivers entered Sunday without a top-10 finish in the first nine races of the NASCAR Cup Series season. Three of them earned a top-10 at Talladega:
Todd Gilliland: 8th
While Gilliland didn’t score any stage points, he ran up front throughout the race. Gilliland was second coming to pit road for his final stop behind teammate Michael McDowell. However, a slow stop meant he exited pit road eighth and restarted 11th with three drivers staying out.
As the field shuffled to set themselves up for the finish, Gilliland moved up to eighth. Even after a wreck collected some drivers in front of him, he finished eighth.
Gilliland earned his best finish since getting eighth at Bristol Dirt last year. It is also his first top-10 finish since Martinsville Speedway in October. He now has seven top-10 finishes in 82 starts.
Daniel Hemric: 9th
Hemric led three times for eight laps, marking the most laps he has led in a NASCAR Cup Series race, besting the seven laps he led in the 2019 Coca-Cola 600. It was also the first time he led multiple laps in a race since Kansas Speedway in October 2019 when he won his lone Cup Series pole.
Continuing the idea that Sunday was a standout day for Hemric, ninth-place is his fourth career top-10 finish in the series. It is his best finish since finishing ninth at Auto Club Speedway in February 2022.
Hemric’s other top-10 finishes were a 5th-place finish at Talladega in the Spring 2019 race and seventh at Pocono Raceway in July 2019.
Harrison Burton: 10th
A week after leading his first laps of the 2024 season, Burton earned his first top-10 finish of the season.
Burton’s 10th-place finish is his best in the NASCAR Cup Series in 25 races — dating back to his eighth-place finish at Pocono Raceway last July. He now has five top-10 finishes in 83 starts to his name.
Burton earned five stage points with a sixth-place finish in stage two.
NEXT: Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET; FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
MORE on TALLADEGA: Toyota tumbles into victory lane at Talladega
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com