If you're looking for a new winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, this Sunday at Circuit of the Americas may not be where you get it as Tyler Reddick tops most key categories at the Austin, Texas road course.
AUSTIN — If you're looking for a new winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, this Sunday at Circuit of the Americas may not be where you get it.
NASCAR Media/Getty ImagesFresh off of two wins in a row to start the 2026 season, at Daytona and EchoPark Atlanta, Tyler Reddick leads all drivers in almost every major category at COTA:
- Wins: 1
- Top-five finishes: 4
- Top-10 finishes: 5
- Poles: 2
- Average start: 2.2
- Average finish: 4.6
- Points scored: 191 Average of 38.2 points per race
Reddick also ranks third in the field for laps led (53), behind only William Byron (71) and Kyle Busch (54), through five races and 361 laps complete at COTA.
To win at COTA, Reddick will have to make history and break through in a way five other drivers have never been able to in the sport's 78-year history:
How have others fared when going for 3 in a row to start a Cup season?
Only five other times has a driver won the first two races of a Cup season – but never has a driver won the first three.
In 1957, Marvin Panch became the first driver to win the first two races of a season and came the closest of any of the five so far – finishing third in the third race of the season.
In 1997, Jeff Gordon led 65 of 400 laps – the most of the five in race No. 3 – but settled for fourth, one lap down.
The other instances didn't fare as well. Bob Welborn finished 41st with an engine failure in race No. 3 of 1959 while David Pearson finished 29th with an oil pump failure in race No. 3 of 1976.
The worst follow-up was the most recent attempt – in 2009 when Matt Kenseth's stats in 2009 ran parallel to Reddick's stats now:
- Tyler Reddick
- 2024: Finished fourth in points with three wins, 12 top-five finishes and 21 top-10 finishes
- 2025: Went winless, finished ninth in points
- 2026: Won first two races
- Matt Kenseth
- 2007: Finished fourth in points with two wins, 13 top-five finishes and 22 top-10 finishes
- 2008: Went winless, finished 11th in points
- 2009: Won first two races
In the race immediately after going two in a row, Kenseth finished last with a blown engine after 6 of 285 laps. Over the next 23 races, he only had two top-fives and seven top-10s and slid out of the Chase after the regular season finale.
Luckily for Reddick, he has a much further slide to take than Kenseth with a 16-man Chase field in play in 2026 vs. 12 in 2009. Plus, his team sits 1-2 in points.
Still, there's long way to go for challengers to show themselves – and some have already.
Who could take down Reddick?
Look no further than the finish to last year's COTA race to see who could take down the two-time winner in 2026.
Christopher Bell and William Byron have finished 1-2 at COTA in the last two years – with Bell winning in 2025 and Byron winning in 2024. Both drivers showed at Daytona and EchoPark Atlanta that they are still in peak form.
Byron looked to be in contention to win a third consecutive Daytona 500 until a bad bump sent Carson Hocevar spinning in front of him on the final lap. Then in overtime at EchoPark, the Hurricane barreled through Bell and sent him into the outside wall as he tried to go for two in a row in the spring race.
Byron also leads all drivers for laps led at COTA (71). He, Bell, Reddick, Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott are the only drivers to win in Cup at COTA.
Some possibilities for a new winner at COTA include some usual suspects, like Shane van Gisbergen and one driver you wouldn't expect.
Kyle Busch led the most laps in last year's race but had to concede from a close battle at the end with worn-out tires. Busch has some of the best stats of the Cup field at COTA and could end a 95-race winless streak this Sunday.
Like SVG, a win would go a long way for Busch to improve his Chase hopes.
No one's Chase hopes look better than Tyler Reddick's hopes. After two wins to start the season, he has a 40-point lead over teammate Bubba Wallace:
