Six 2024 NASCAR Cup winners still seek first win of 2025

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — If you’re looking for a playoff spoiler, these six drivers are still looking for their first win of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season after winning a race in 2024.

Talladega Superspeedway passed and left them with just two races left to get a win – Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. Some of them came close at Talladega and could still have a chance in one of the final two races.

Tyler Reddick (3 wins in 2024)

Tyler Reddick made the playoffs and has had glimpses of trademark moments but it has still been a tough, winless season for him on and off the track.

While Reddick’s average finish is only one position off of 2024, he has had five fewer top-five finishes (7 vs. 12), seven fewer top-10 finishes (14 vs. 21) and far fewer laps led (163 vs. 597).

Reddick saw his best chances at win vanish with a late-race caution (Darlington – April), a spin in lap traffic (Richmond) and just not finding a way around the leader despite having a faster car (Southern 500 at Darlington).

Could Reddick win at Martinsville or Phoenix? Possibly. He has been strong at Phoenix before and a strong performance at Martinsville could help play spoiler to the playoffs and naturally assist Toyota teammate Christopher Bell with a Championship 4 berth. 

Brad Keselowski (1 win in 2024)

For as many wins as Reddick had in 2024, there are as many wins Brad Keselowski could’ve easily had in 2025.

Atlanta, Iowa and Bristol immediately come to mind. Keselowski couldn’t outmaneuver Hendrick Motorsports and their manpower at Atlanta and their pit strategy at Iowa — and didn’t have the restart or the right bump to win at Bristol. 

Ultimately, Keselowski finds himself looking at just the fourth winless season of a championship career that now spans 16 seasons. Three of those seasons have come since Keselowski bought into Roush to form RFK Racing — but he would be the first to tell you this was to be expected. The consistency RFK has shown and the improvement Keselowski’s No. 6 team has shown mean they’re trending upward as the calendar flips from 2025 to 2026.

Can Keselowski win in 2025? Possibly.

Keselowski was one of the top lap leaders at Martinsville and has won twice at the track. Playoff guys will likely dominate the day but don’t be surprised if you see the 2012 champ running up front by day’s end.

Chris Buescher (1 win in 2024)

“We just need a little more to have enough speed to win.”

Words defining Chris Buescher’s season, as spoken by the man himself.

Buescher has improved his average finish (14.0 vs. 14.3), scored more top-10s (16 vs. 15) and almost as many top-fives (5 vs. 6) this season compared to last season — but went winless in the regular season and missed the playoffs again.

The difference this year is Buescher still hasn’t found victory lane yet. He has come close. Buescher had strong runs at Michigan (second) and Pocono (fourth).

If there’s anyone to blame for Buescher being winless, it may be Shane van Gisbergen and his road course domination. Buescher battled Ryan Blaney for second late in the race at Watkins Glen but settled for third. At the Charlotte Roval, he finished fourth and was not far off of SVG’s closest challengers, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell.

Could Buescher have a chance to win in 2025? Martinsville, no. Phoenix, far more.

Buescher has three top-fives in the last four Phoenix races, including a near spoiler win in the championship race in 2023. You can expect him to run up front and, if the right circumstances prevail, possibly play spoiler this year again.

Alex Bowman (1 win in 2024)

One corner at Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this season was quite decisive for Bowman among other drivers — and this list.

In the closing laps in the March race, Bowman led over teammate and high-line extraordinaire Kyle Larson. Larson was running him down but Bowman held a decent gap that could be managed — until he hit the wall in turn three and gave Larson what he needed to get by.

With fifth top-10 finishes in six races, Bowman and Hendrick Motorsports had run well enough to where a loss like that was something to dust off. However, his team hasn’t run like that since then and they bowed out of the playoffs in the first round after an onslaught of issues.

Bowman has shown pace at races like Richmond, Bristol and Las Vegas where one or a couple of things going differently could’ve etched his name into the trophy.

For now, looking at how high the stakes are in the next two weeks and the team’s history, it’s likely 2025 will be their second winless season in the last three. Hope is on the horizon with glimpses of speed and a new Chevrolet body coming.

Daniel Suarez and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (1 win each in 2024)

Suarez and Stenhouse each dramatically pulled off massive drafting track triumphs for their respective teams in 2024.

Suarez won in the closest three-wide finish in NASCAR history — at Atlanta in February 2024 — while Stenhouse won in one of the closest Cup finishes of all-time, at Talladega in October 2024.

In 2025, luck hasn’t been on their side nearly as much.

Suarez started the season stumbling but found his footing at Las Vegas. He battled for the win that ultimately swung in favor of Josh Berry for his first Cup win.

Around that time, Stenhouse was becoming the creme of the crop for consistency in the Cup Series.

Stenhouse found himself 13th in points after race No. 13 — the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte — and setting up for a possible playoff run on points.

It wasn’t to be, however. After contact with Carson Hocevar led to a race-ending crash and 39th-place finish at Nashville Superspeedway, Stenhouse tumbled to 30th in points with just two top-15 finishes in the last 21 races — half of what he earned in the first 13.

In that time, Suarez made a strong run at the playoffs with three finishes of seventh or better to close out the regular season — but he came up one spot short at Daytona of getting in with a win.

Suarez is signed on for 2026 with Spire and will join the others, likely including Stenhouse, on the Cup grid next year.