2021 Alternate NASCAR Cup Series

2021 Alternate NASCAR Cup Series
Details
Owner	Aislabie
Races	30 +4 non-Championship events
First Race	Daytona 500
Last Race	Championship 500
Major Championships
Drivers Championship
Owners Championship
Manufacturer Championship
Minor Championships
Daytona 500 Champion
Rookie of the Year
Earnhardt Award
Petty Award
Trickle Award
Gordon Award
Other Seasons
<<<	>>>
None	2022

The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series was the 73rd season of NASCAR-sanctioned stock car racing in the United States. The season saw sweeping changes from the 2020 season, which had seen Chase Elliott become the Champion Driver despite Kevin Harvick being statistically by far the leading driver all season long. 2021 saw the biggest changes to the Cup Series since at least 2004, as NASCAR aimed to revitalise itself by embracing its history as well as some of its modern innovations.

Changes to the sport

The 2021 season had long been billed as the start of a new era, but it saw changes to almost every aspect of the sport as it sought to recapture its early-2000s popularity. In one three-month off-season, NASCAR undid a lot of the changes made over the course of the previous decade or so. These changes included:

• The return to a more manageable 30-race schedule, to avoid scheduling conflicts with the start of the football season.
• The abolition of the playoffs and return to a season-long points system.
• The abolition of the charter system, which had contributed to declining field sizes over the last few years.
• The abolition of stage racing, which saw cautions being thrown, and points awarded, to drivers at certain predefined "checkpoints" in the race.

In addition to this, extensive changes were made to the qualifying system for Cup races. Mimicking the Daytona 500 format, it was decided that for all 30 rounds of the Championship, one-lap qualifying would set the starting grids for two heat races (as well as deciding the first 20 cars qualified for the feature race), with ten cars from each heat having the opportunity to "race their way in". No cars would be protected from the possibility of failing to qualify, and the possibility of being able to make the main event through attrition in heat races should serve as an incentive to smaller teams. The playoff system was scraped in favor of a return to a traditional points system.

NASCAR also proudly announced that two additional manufacturers would be joining the series, with the return of Dodge and the first-ever appearance of Honda in the Cup series. This brings the total number of manufacturers to five, with the models represented in the Cup being the Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Charger, Ford Mustang, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.

Calendar

Event		Track	Type	Laps	Winning driver	Winning team		Winning manufacturer
	Busch Clash	Daytona International Speedway	Superspeedway	40
1	Daytona 500			200
2	Dixie Vodka Florida 400	Homestead-Miami Speedway	Intermediate	267
3	California 400 presented by Auto Club	Auto Club Speedway	Superspeedway	200
4	Camping World Midwest 400	Chicagoland Speedway	Intermediate	267
5	Food City Southeastern 500	Bristol Motor Speedway	Short Track	500
6	Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief Virginia 500	Martinsville Speedway	Short Track	500
7	GEICO Alabama 500	Talladega Superspeedway	Superspeedway	188
8	Busch Spartan 300 by Crosley Radio	Kentucky Speedway	Intermediate	200
9	Consumers Energy Yankee 400	Michigan International Speedway	Superspeedway	200
10	Drydene Delaware 400	Dover International Speedway	Intermediate	400
	NASCAR Open	Charlotte Motor Speedway	Intermediate	40
	NASCAR All Star Race			60
11	Coca-Cola World 600			400
12	Ally Music City 400	Nashville Superspeedway	Intermediate	200
13	Gander RV Mile High 400, presented by Pocono Organics	Pocono Raceway	Superspeedway	160
14	Quaker State Atlanta 400 presented by Walmart	Atlanta Motor Speedway	Intermediate	260
15	Foxwood Resort New England 300	New Hampshire Motor Speedway	Intermediate	300
16	GoBowling 350 at The Glen	Watkins Glen International	Road Course	89
17	Big Machine Hand Sanitizer Brickyard 400 Powered by Big Machine Records	Indianapolis Motor Speedway	Superspeedway	160
18	World Wide Technology Illinois 350	Gateway Motorsports Park	Intermediate	280
19	Coke Zero Firecracker 400	Daytona International Speedway	Superspeedway	160
20	NASCAR Throwback Southern 500 by Cook Out	Darlington Raceway	Intermediate	367
	NASCAR Masters	Richmond Raceway	Short Track	100
21	Federated Auto Parts Capital City 400			400
22	Best Night Race In The World	Bristol Motor Speedway	Short Track	400
23	Pennzoil Las Vegas 300	Las Vegas Motor Speedway	Intermediate	200
24	Yellawood Talladega 500	Talladega Superspeedway	Superspeedway	188
25	Bank of America Roval 400	Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval	Road Course	109
26	Buschy McBusch Race Kansas 400	Kansas Speedway	Intermediate	267
27	Xfinity Old Dominion 400	Martinsville Speedway	Short Track	400
28	Can-Am Phoenix 300	Phoenix Raceway	Intermediate	300
29	Disney 300, presented by Marvel Studios	Walt Disney World Speedway	Intermediate	300
	NASCAR Exhibition	Homestead-Miami Speedway Roval	Road Course	27
30	Bluegreen Vacations Championship 400	Homestead-Miami Speedway	Intermediate	267

Calendar Changes

In light of the disruption that occurred in the 2020 season, NASCAR took the opportunity to make sweeping changes to their calendar. These changes included:

• The reduction of the Cup schedule to only 30 races, reducing the scheduling conflict with the start of the football season.
• The introduction of Nashville Superspeedway, Gateway Motorsports Park and Walt Disney World Speedway to the Cup series for the first time.
• The introduction of two new non-championship events to complete a quartet of such race meetings.

The season finale also returned to Homestead-Miami Speedway after one year away at Phoenix Raceway, although unlike previous years this race (now dubbed the Championship 400) is not a guaranteed championship decider owing to the removal of the playoff system for deciding the championship.

Teams and Drivers

The charter system, which had been in place since 2016, was cancelled after five seasons of diminishing grid sizes. The return to an open field was coupled with the return of Dodge and the arrival of Honda in the Cup Series. This and the revolutionised qualifying system resulted in the largest field sizes NASCAR had seen for decades.

Note
Denotes the manufacturer's Works team
Denotes a team with Factory support
Denotes a team running Customer or Hire cars
Denotes a team running Legacy cars

Manufacturer	Team	#	Driver	Schedule	Primary Sponsor
Chevrolet	StarCom Racing [V]	00	Quin Houff	All	Permatex
	Chip Ganassi Racing [M]	1	Kurt Busch	All	Monster Energy
		42	Ross Chastain	All
	Richard Childress Racing [M]	3	Austin Dillon	All
		8	Tyler Reddick	All
		29	Ty Dillon	All	GEICO
	Tommy Baldwin Racing [V]	7	Stanton Barrett	1,7,19,24
			Josh Bilicki	2,14,20,29-30
			Joey Gase	3,10,16,18,28
			Reed Sorenson	4,9,11,23,26
			JJ Yeley	5-6,21-22,27
			Robbie Ray Knox	13
	Hendrick Motorsports [M]	9	Chase Elliott	All	NAPA Auto Parts
		24	William Byron	All	Liberty University
		48	Kyle Larson	All
		88	Alex Bowman	All
	Germain Racing [V]	13	Ruben Garcia	1,23-24
			Jorge Goeters	2-6
			Gary Klutt	7-9
			Germán Quiroga	10-14
			Hermie Sadler	15-18
			Austin Hill	19-22
			Natalie Decker	25-30
	Premium Motorsports [V]	15	Brennan Poole	All
	Richard Petty Motorsports [V]	43	Bubba Wallace	All
	Beard Motorsports [V]	62	Noah Gragson	1, 7, 19, 24	Beard Oil
	Spire Motorsports [M]	74	Greg Biffle	1
		77	Justin Haley	All
	Team Keller Racing [V]	90	Robbie Ray Knox	20
	Trackhouse Racing [V]	99	Daniel Suárez	All
Dodge	Team Penske [M]	2	Brad Keselowski	All	Discount Tire
		12	Ryan Blaney	All
		22	Joey Logano	All	Shell
		33	Nicolas Steele	1
	Go Fas Racing [M]	32	Erik Jones	All
	Front Row Motorsports [M]	34	Michael McDowell	All	Love's Travel Stops
		38	Brett Moffitt	All
Ford	Stewart-Haas Racing [V]	4	Parker Kligerman	All
		10	Cole Custer	All
		14	Sheldon Creed	All
		41	Aric Almirola	All	Smithfield
	Roush Fenway Racing [M]	6	Kevin Harvick	All
		17	Chris Buescher	All
	Wood Brothers Racing [V]	21	Matt DiBenedetto	All
	JTG-Daugherty Racing [M]	37	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	All	Kroger
		47	Trevor Bayne	All	Mahalo Coffee Roasters
		85	Blake Jones	1
			Julia Landauer	2-3
			Stanton Barrett	4
			Robbie Ray Knox	5-9,24
			Natalie Decker	10,19-23
			Gary Klutt	11-13
			Hermie Sadler	14-15,17-18
			Henry Paul	16,25
			Scott Heckert	26-30
	Live Fast Motorsports [V]	78	BJ McLeod	All
Honda	Kaulig Racing [M]	16	Brandon Jones	All
	Andretti Autosport [M]	25	TBA	All
		26	Oliver Askew	All
		27	Pietro Fittipaldi	All
		28	A.J. Allmendinger	1-26, 28-30
			Dale Earnhardt Jr.	27
	Hattori Racing Enterprises [M]	61	Jacques Villeneuve	All
		81	Takuma Sato	1	(H)
			TBA	All
Toyota	Joe Gibbs Racing [M]	11	Denny Hamlin	All	FedEx
		18	Kyle Busch	All	M&Ms
		19	Martin Truex Jr.	All	Bass Pro Shops
		20	TBA	All
	23XI Racing [M]	23	Daniel Ricciardo	All	Optus
	Gaunt Brothers Racing [M]	40	Travis Crabtree	7, 16, 25
		96	Corey Lajoie	All
	NY Racing Team [M]	44	James James Davies	All
		82	Justin Allgaier	All
	MBM Motorsports [V]	49	Garrett Smithley	1
		66	Timmy Hill	All	RoofClaim.com
	Rick Ware Racing [M]	51		All
		52		All
		53		All
		54		All
	Leavine Family Racing [V]	95	Christopher Bell	All	(T)

Championship Standings

Points System

Qualifying

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Rest
Points	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0

Heat Races

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	Rest
Points	25	22	20	18	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0

Feature Race

Position	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	DNQ
Points	50	45	42	40	38	36	34	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	26	25	24	23	22	21	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0