The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season is over after Kyle Larson claimed his third championship and Ryan Blaney won his fourth race of the year. This means that Chevrolet teams now have 38 races worth of data about the updated Camaro body that debuted at the Clash.
Videos by FanBuzz
So how do the Team Chevy drivers feel heading into the offseason? How did this stock car meet expectations based on the available data they had heading to Bowman Gray Stadium back in February?
"Big difference than what we expected," Trackhouse Racing's Ross Chastain said in response to FanBuzz. "I'd say at the start of the season, just flat out, did not live up to expectations. A lot of work has gone in since the first time we put this car on track, at the beginning of the season, at these downforce tracks, and we have come a long way."
Looking at the 2025 Cup Series Camaro and the 2026 version side-by-side, the differences aren't major. The overall body shape is the same, but the updated version has a revised grille, larger hood power dome, and more pronounced rocker panels along the sides of the car.
These differences seemed subtle, but they became far more noticeable to the drivers completing laps around the tracks on NASCAR's schedule, especially the more traditional ovals.
"It's pretty cool to see from my literal, physical seat in the car, how, from the first time we pulled on track with it, the most glaring thing for me is if you look at the hood, it's got a — call it the power bulge — the center of the hood is raised," Chastain continued.
"And ever since that hood has gone on it, from the beginning to now, it's incredible how, for it to be the same car, how much better it's driving now. Supposed to be very, very small percent different coming into the season, and it was not."
I'm asking several Chevrolet drivers this weekend about the first year with the updated Cup Series body for an upcoming story.
The big question is: Did it meet expectations?
Michael McDowell has weighed in: pic.twitter.com/tVVqqqmHql— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) November 7, 2026
The early stages of the 2026 season featured domination by Toyota drivers. Tyler Reddick won four of the first six races while Denny Hamlin won one. Ryan Blaney captured one win for Ford.
The first traditional oval on the schedule — Phoenix — had Christopher Bell leading a race-high 176 laps. William Byron led one lap. One week later at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Byron and Kyle Larson combined to lead 88 laps while Hamlin led 134.
"I know behind the wheel, there were some pretty big things that didn't feel right at the start of the season," Chase Elliott told FanBuzz ahead of the championship race. "The weird part for me is we had some of our best races at the beginning part of the year.
"Had a few really good runs, but it seemed like it was really, really hard to hit that spot with this car and hit that happy place and make it go. We got fortunate to do that on a few occasions, but boy, when you missed it, it was really difficult to kinda get back in the window."
The Chevrolet drivers had some strong runs — Larson and Elliott both scored top-five finishes at Las Vegas and Phoenix. The drivers just fell short of victory lane until Week 7.
Even the OEM's first win of the season, which Elliott delivered at Martinsville, came after crew chief Alan Gustafson made the call to short pit and hope that clean air would matter more than tires. This paid off.
The regular season featured six Chevrolet wins in 26 races. Elliott won at Martinsville and Texas Motor Speedway. Daniel Suarez won the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600. Shane van Gisbergen won two road course races while Carson Hocevar won at Talladega.
Larson went winless during the regular season, but he led 284 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway and 78 laps at Kansas Speedway. He just led four or fewer laps in 14 of the 26 regular-season races.
"I think we all get excited when you get the new body build, but I think if you look throughout history, there's always seemed to be growing pains," Austin Dillon said.
"And I think the good news is that there was a lot of effort from Chevrolet and the key partners to get us to where we are now, which I think is much competitive, much more competitive than where we started the year. So I'm excited about it because of the way we finished the year with it."
To Dillon's point, the playoffs served as the point when the Chevrolet drivers delivered more success and consistency overall. This includes drivers from Richard Childress Racing, Trackhouse Racing, Spire Motorsports, and Hendrick Motorsports.
Larson scored three wins and posted an average finish of 7.3 in 10 Chase races. William Byron won at Martinsville to snap his year-long winless streak.
Suarez, Dillon, Alex Bowman, Elliott, Michael McDowell, van Gisbergen, Connor Zilisch, and Carson Hocevar scored top-10 finishes. Austin Hill posted his first two top-15 finishes of the year.
"Just a learning curve, right? Like a process learning, trying to put all the pieces together to be in the right spot," Bowman told FanBuzz.
"So feel like it took us a while to get our hands wrapped around it. But at this point in the year, it's hard to argue that it's been really, really good since we seemed to get it figured out a little bit."
The Chevrolet drivers don't know if they will have more success early in 2027 as they take on the second year of the updated Camaro body.
They hope that the full season's worth of data will provide more room for error. The goal is to unload better to start the weekend instead of having to play catch-up during practice and the race.
This is a hope that GM shares after watching Toyota Racing win the 2026 Cup Series Manufacturers' Championship. It is a hope built on the knowledge that the Chevrolet drivers have previously recovered from past body changes and dominated multiple races.
"We won, I think, the last five or six Manufacturers' Championships in a row," said Dr. Eric Warren, VP of global motorsports competition for GM, after Justin Allgaier won the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series championship. "Toyota did a great job. Honestly, you got to give it to them.
"The great thing about the season and the format is you got to end it. So seeing Kyle's domination in Cup, obviously we got another race to go, a lot of work to do.
"Looking at Justin and JR Motorsports this year with the number of wins, I think we had 29 wins. What a great series, what a great championship. Looking at the final race, I mean, couldn't really be more proud of that.
"It's tough to win every single year, so... The new car, we started in 2020 with the new car. Very similar ending. Then we won 21 races the next year. Every year brings something different. I really applaud how everybody's been working on it. Hopefully we finish it."
