Martinsville Race Review

 

Chase Elliott

    Hendrick Motorsports has not gotten off to the best start in 2026. This was the deepest that they had gone winless in a season in quite some time, but Elliott broke through for the team at Martinsville. He was not the dominant car on the day, as he was only up front the last 100 laps of the race. Elliott had a decent long run today, but he could just not move his way forward for much of the race. He ran 10th to 15th for most of the race and didn't earn stage points. Elliott had gotten up into the top 10 during the first part of stage 3, but was largely stuck battling his teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson. Alan Gustafson decided to do something vastly different in the third stage, however, to get Chase to the front.

    The plan for Elliott during stage 3 was to split the stage into thirds and get off sequence from everyone else. Elliott would end up pitting at lap 260 and was going to have to deal with most of the leaders going past him right after they had pitted between laps 280 and 290. With about 80 laps to go in the race, Ty Dillon had an issue with the right front tire which caused a brake rotor to lay on the track. Granted, the brake rotor was on pit road, but Elliott got a good break with that caution occurring. As a result, Chase was able to get 4 fresh tires and come off pit road just behind Denny Hamlin. With Ross Chastain staying out, Elliott was able to beat Hamlin on the restart and take control of the race.

    Elliott would go on to lead the final 80 laps to pick up the win over Denny Hamlin. Hamlin was close that final run, but Elliott was able to get through lap traffic well enough. This is the earliest Elliott has won in a season in his career as well. He's up to 4th in the points now and leads all Chevys in the standings. Elliott has shown some really good speed so far this year as he finished runner up at Las Vegas. While I don't expect Elliott to be the winningest driver this season, it is fair to expect him to get a couple more wins as this season goes. With how consistent he usually is, I fully expect him to be a title contender this year

Top Finishers

• 1. Chase Elliott
• 2. Denny Hamlin
• 3. Joey Logano 
• 4. Ty Gibbs
• 5. William Byron
• 6. Ryan Blaney
• 7. Christopher Bell
• 8. Austin Cindric
• 9. Kyle Larson
• 10. Josh Berry
• 11.Shane Van Gisbergen
• 12. Ryan Preece
• 13. Brad Keselowski
• 14. Chase Briscoe
• 15. Tyler Reddick
• 16. Ross Chastain
• 17. Carson Hocevar
• 18. Michael McDowell
• 19. Chris Buescher
• 20. Daniel Suarez
• 21. Erik Jones
• 22. Justin Allgaier
• 23. Todd Gilliland
• 24. Kyle Busch
• 25. Austin Dillon
• 26. Connor Zilisch
• 27. Aj Allmendinger
• 28. Noah Gragson
• 29. John Hunter Nemechek
• 30. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
• 31. Cole Custer
• 32. Cody Ware
• 33. Austin Hill
• 34. Zane Smith
• 35. Riley Herbst
• 36. Bubba Wallace
• 37. Ty Dillon

    Denny Hamlin was the dominant car of the day, as he led nearly 300 of the 400 laps. He struggled to get by Ross Chastain on the first restart of stage 3, which allowed Chase Elliott to get by on that restart. After the Hocevar and Wallace caution, Chase was able to clear Chastain pretty quickly, whereas Hamlin struggled to get by Chastain. Hamlin also got into it with Ryan Blaney a bit, as he walled Blaney off turn 4. That said, Hamlin still had a really good day as he won both stages. 

    Team Penske looked really good today. This isn't really a surprise considering that this track type is where they excel at. Joey Logano comes up with a 3rd place finish, continuing a streak now of 14 straight top 10 finishes at Martinsville. Ryan Blaney was pretty good today and would've finished 3rd or 4th had he not been walled by Denny Hamlin. I was surprised to see Blaney not be better on the long run this week, as it seemed he just stalled out as the tires wore. Still, Blaney finishes a respectable 6th. Austin Cindric was really impressive today, and he's finally getting the finishes that he deserves. He still sits outside the Chase at the moment, but he's looked really good the last few weeks and he backed up the speed today with an 8th place finish. Josh Berry, who's with a team Penske affiliated team in the Wood Brothers, had his best run of the season and comes home with a 10th place finish.

    Joe Gibbs Racing had another strong day as well. Hamlin was the dominant car, but Ty Gibbs performance can't be overlooked. Gibbs ran inside the top 5 all day and he's gotten his 5th straight top 6 finish. Gibbs is on a roll right now and he's finally broken out. Christopher Bell was alright today, as he ran inside the top 10 for most of the second half of this race. That said, Bell wasn't really near Hamlin or Gibbs this race. He still comes home with a solid 7th place finish. Chase Briscoe was pretty far off his teammates this race. He went down a lap on multiple occasions this race. He ends up with a 14th place finish so it wasn't an awful day, but Briscoe has just struggled to get good finishes this year.

    William Byron and Kyle Larson had decent days today. Byron ran up in the top 7 for most of this race, gaining 15 stage points along with his 5th place finish. As for Larson, he was just kind of there around the top 10 for a lot of the day. He was the fastest on 25 and 30 lap averages in practice, but that long run speed was never really there. Larson does collect his 4th top 10 of the year with a 9th place finish at Martinsville. We just haven't seen winning speed out of Byron or Larson this year, as I expected one of these two to win before Elliott. 

    SVG showed growth on ovals throughout the season in 2025. By the end of the year, he was running top 15 at tracks like New Hampshire, Kansas, and Martinsville during the Playoffs. That said, he's gotten even better on ovals in 2026. He qualified 5th and ran up in the top 10 for much of this race. While an 11th place finish might be a bit disappointing, this was still his 4th top 15 finish on an oval this year which is really encouraging. Ross Chastain got to the front through pit strategy on the final run, but he quickly faded outside the top 15. Chastain has not shown much speed so far this season, and while I think he will still make the Chase, he won't be a contender for the title. Connor Zilisch wasn't a factor at all as he was collected in the Hocevar and Wallace incident late, ending up with a 26th place finish.

    RFK Racing was a bit disappointing today. Ryan Preece finished in the top 10 in Martinsville races last year, but he just wasn't much of a factor. He did have good long run speed, but the furthest he got up to was 10th. He ends up with a 12th place finish. Brad Keselowski was in the mid teens for most of this race, as he finished 13th. Chris Buescher had an issue during stage 2 and fell a lap down, and he fought most of the race to get back onto the lead lap. That said, he could only get up to 19th place. 

    23XI didn't have a great day at Martinsville today. Tyler Reddick started out in the top 10, but he had a bad pit stop at the end of stage 2 which sent up back to 15th. Reddick wouldn't be able to move forward the final run, and easily had his worst race of the season. He ends up with a 15th place finish at a track that he's historically struggled at. Bubba Wallace was in the mid teens for most of this race, and he got into it with Carson Hocevar on the final restart of the day. Hocevar made it three wide going into turn 1 and used Bubba up a little bit. Wallace then gave Hocevar the bumper in turns 3 and 4, but ended up just driving right through him and cleaned him out. Wallace got the worst of it, as he went to the garage along with teammate Riley Herbst. That crash also took out Zane Smith, who was on pace to finish around 20th.

    There really weren't any other players up front during this race. Hocevar spent a little bit of time in the top 10, but he faded back to the mid teens where he finished 17th. McDowell and Suarez both collected top 20s for Spire Motorsports to stay afloat in the fight to get into the Chase. Kyle Busch just sucked again, as they qualified terribly and ran terribly all day. This is the deepest into a season that RCR has gone without a top 10 in their entire history as a team. If Bristol ends up being a tire roulette race, then there's a chance that RCR gets their first top 10 of the season. If not, then this team isn't finishing in the top 10 on pure speed.

Standings

Pos	Driver	Points	+/- Cutline
1	Tyler Reddick	353	+195
2	Ryan Blaney	271	+113
3	Denny Hamlin	259	+101
4	Chase Elliott	249	+91
5	William Byron	238	+80
6	Ty Gibbs	222	+64
7	Christopher Bell	212	+54
8	Brad Keselowski	206	+48
9	Kyle Larson	206	+48
10	Chris Buescher	206	+48
11	Bubba Wallace	206	+48
12	Joey Logano	185	+27
13	Ryan Preece	180	+23
14	Shane van Gisbergen	174	+16
15	Carson Hocevar	171	+13
16	Daniel Suárez	167	+9 (Cutline)
17	Michael McDowell	158	-9
18	Austin Cindric	149	-18
19	Ross Chastain	136	-31
20	AJ Allmendinger	134	-33
21	Chase Briscoe	131	-36
22	Zane Smith	126	-41
23	Erik Jones	119	-48
24	Kyle Busch	119	-48
25	Josh Berry	112	-55
26	John Hunter Nemechek	109	-58
27	Austin Dillon	105	-62
28	Todd Gilliland	96	-71
29	Noah Gragson	93	-74
30	Riley Herbst	90	-77
31	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	87	-80
32	Ty Dillon	87	-80
33	Connor Zilisch	80	-87
34	Cole Custer	67	-100
35	Cody Ware	58	-109
36	Alex Bowman	23	-144

    Currently, Daniel Suarez is the last driver in, whereas McDowell is the first driver out. Bubba Wallace lost the most spots this week dropping 5 spots in the points. Ty Dillon (-4), Riley Herbst (-3), Zane Smith (-3), and Chris Buescher (-3) were the other big losers. As for the biggest gainers, those include Josh Berry (+7), Ty Gibbs (+5), Joey Logano (+4), and Austin Cindric (+3). 

Overall Thoughts

    This race was pretty mediocre. Unlike Darlington last week, there was a lack of comers and goers throughout the field. The guys that stayed up front, stayed up there all day. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but it's nice to see guys be able to move their way forward from the back. The increased horsepower did little to help with the on track product today which was disappointing because Phoenix and Darlington were both better races than most Next Gen races. Tire wear was there, but it didn't feel like there was as big of an effect compared to the fall race last season. If that debris caution doesn't happen from Ty Dillon's brake rotor, then maybe we would've been talking about how dominant Denny Hamlin was, or if Ryan Blaney could've ran him down. That's all hypothetical though, and sometimes in this sport you have to get the right break to get up front which happened with Elliott.

    The Martinsville Spring race ever since the Next Gen debut back in 2022, has always been overshadowed by the fall race. Part of that is because of Martinsville being the last race in the round of 8 the last few years which added intensity to the race because that was the last opportunity for drivers to win their way in. The fall race has just had better racing in general compared to the spring race as well. I don't necessarily think Martinsville needs to go down to one race a year, but it's clear that the Spring race does not have an identity. I would say that there needs to be a fundamental change with this car at short tracks especially, but that isn't going to happen. I would say the easiest thing to fix it would be to bring a softer tire, but then that puts all the pressure on Goodyear to bail out NASCAR. That said, something needs to be fixed at Martinsville especially.

    The Cup Series is off next weekend for Easter, so there likely won't be any race review for the O'Reilly or Truck race at Rockingham. I might write on Friday just going over each Cup Series drivers season so far and grading it up until this point. Either way, it's been a decent start to this NASCAR series and I look forward to whatever race Bristol ends up being in a couple weeks time!