The 2024 Cup Series season has proven to be a fruitful one for many drivers. A lot who were struggling to find the victory lane for over 40 races have finally managed to break their curses this year. And the latest among them is Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman, who emerged victorious at the end of the 58-lap race at the Chicago Street Course on Sunday.
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Bowman was riding an 80-race winless streak which began after he won at Las Vegas in 2022. Chicago was the eighth win of his career and helped him fix a spot in the upcoming playoffs. Five other drivers have breached their droughts the same as him. Chase Elliott was on top of a 42-race winless streak when he reached the victory lane at Texas earlier in the season.
His bad luck began after Talladega in 2022 and went through a particularly agonizing 2023 in which he suffered major injuries. 2X Cup Series champion Joey Logano was another driver who won recently, at Nashville, to end a long streak. Since Atlanta last year, he had gone 49 races without a win. The breakthrough at the Music City came at a crucial point in the season for he was almost on the verge of missing out on the playoffs.
2024, the year where winless streaks go to die
Alex Bowman is already the 6th driver to break a 40+ race winless streak in 2024, the record is 7 in a season.
Brad Keselowski (110)
Austin Cindric (85)
Alex Bowman (80)
Daniel Suarez (57)
Joey Logano (49)
Chase Elliott (42) pic.twitter.com/bfoS76oSNi— Trey Ryan (@TreyRyan99) July 9, 2024
Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez made history in Atlanta in the second race of the 2024 season when he edged past Kyle Larson by 0.003 seconds. In doing so, he also secured a victory after a 57-race gap from his first Cup Series win, which was at Sonoma in 2022. Two more drivers, each with streaks longer than Bowman’s, round up this list.
Team Penske driver Austin Cindric isn’t someone who manages to reach the victory lane very often. However, he did do so at the World Wide Technology Raceway this year and broke an 85-race drought that began after he won the 2022 Daytona 500. Interestingly, Cindric’s win at WWTR is his only top-10 finish this season apart from a fourth-place finish at Atlanta.
The honor of breaking the longest streak this year befalls none other than RFK Racing co-owner and the 2012 Cup Series champion, Brad Keselowski. It took him 110 races after winning at Talladega in 2021 driving the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske to find the victory lane again. By the time his success came at Darlington this May, he was a different man driving a different car for a different team.
