NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega Top 10 Breakdown: Jack Link's 500

LINCOLN, Ala. — Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series saw seven full-time drivers earn their best finish of the 2026 season, including six of the top 10 finishers.

Carson Hocevar

Hocevar rode the 'Dente to celebrate his first NASCAR Cup Series win that got him up to eighth in the points standings.

The points position is remarkable for Spire Motorsports. Three years after a team they struggled to stay inside the top-30 in points, they have earned more points so far this season than teams from the three organizations that have won nine of the last 10 Cup championships: Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske.

Hocevar heads to Texas where he won the pole last year and could continue to climb up the standings. He just needs to avoid calamity that hampered his finish last year.

Hocevar is 72 points above the Chase cutline and 192 points out of the lead. 

Chris Buescher

Another improved team is Chris Buescher, who nearly snapped a winless streak dating back to Watkins Glen in 2024, if not for his help falling apart entering the tri-oval. 

Buescher finished fourth and third in the stages and ran up front all day, leading 22 laps. Maybe another Ford would've help? Possibly not. He said his best pusher all day was Erik Jones, who spun late in the race.

Buescher is now seventh in the standings, 87 points above the Chase cutline and 175 points out of the lead.

Alex Bowman

Welcome back to the top-five, Alex Bowman! 

A literally dizzying start to the season finally started to get on a solid footing Sunday as the driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet earned his first top-five finish since Richmond in August when he finished second. 

He still has a long way to climb to get to the Chase and it's unlikely he'll get there. The priority is to have more runs like this to build momentum. 

Chase Elliott

The driver of the No. 9 Prime Video Chevrolet getting fourth was about the only "normal" result on the day.

The series' most popular driver avoided getting taken out in the big one and hung around the top-10. He's now fourth in points, 144 points behind Tyler Reddick.

Zane Smith

Smith is the only driver with top-10 finishes in every drafting track race this season. He followed up finishes of sixth at Daytona and seventh at EchoPark Speedway Atlanta with his first top-five finish of 2026.

The driver of the No. 38 Aaron's Dream Machine doesn't have to dream about last fall at Bristol to see himself in the top-five at the finish. His team still has some work to do heading to Texas as their best non-drafting track finish is 14th at Las Vegas. 

Smith is 20th in the standings, 43 points below the Chase cutline.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Stenhouse continued a decent streak for his No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet team with a sixth-place finish. 

Coming into the race, he had finished 17th at Bristol and then 21st at Kansas, which are the team's best non-drafting track finishes. 

Capitalizing on Talladega, one of Stenhouse's strengths, allowed them to jump five spots in the standings. He sits 25th, still more than a race worth of points away from getting into Chase contention. 

Stenhouse now has had multiple drafting track top-10 finishes in every season since 2023. He finished second in February's Daytona 500.

Ross Chastain

A victim of his own success, Chastain came up seventh after winning the second stage and subsequently having to take more fuel to start the final stage.

The driver of Trackhouse Racing's No. 1 Chevrolet was stuck in the two-lane gridlock of that didn't allow anyone but the leaders of each lane to really make a move for the win. He survived the chaos in the tri-oval to get his second top-10 finish of the season.

Chastain has top-10s only on drafting tracks (other top-10 was third at EchoPark Atlanta). His best finish otherwise is 16th, at Darlington and Martinsville.

Being 18th in the standings, 21 points below the cutline, isn't much. With stats like Chastain's, however, it's going to be a tall task.

Austin Cindric

Somehow, Austin Cindric came back from this to finish eighth and jump into a Chase spot.

Cindric is in Chase contention by four points over Chase Briscoe after missing his pit stall in the first stage, getting in the big one in the second stage and getting around the final-lap chaos to get his third top-10 of the season.

Cindric will be interesting to see at Texas. Last year, he ran well and looked strong but Penske has been off on speedways this year. However, the No. 2 team had a top-15 run in the most recent speedway race (Kansas), while his teammates struggled. 

Noah Gragson 

Did a lap dance granny give Gragson what he needed to get his first top-10 finish of the season? Maybe. 

Gragson kicked off his cougar era with his first top-10 since the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in May last year. Ninth was his best finish since finishing fourth last spring in the exact same Talladega race.

Gragson's best Texas finish was 18th in 2024. He is 29th in the standings.

Kyle Busch

Busch will enter Texas with a top-10 finish on the season and a new crew chief to help him get more. 

The driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet survived the big one and calamity on the final lap to get 10th. 

He still sits 27th in the points standings with Texas as a huge question mark, given the team's lack of speed and Busch's so-so past.