NASCAR Cup Series
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Brickyard 400
Team Chevy Post-Race Report
July 26, 2026
Hocevar Leads Chevrolet with Top-10 Finish in the 2026 Brickyard 400
In his third career start in the Brickyard 400, Carson Hocevar turned in a top-10 finish to lead Chevrolet to the checkered flag at the famed 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The result – his ninth top-10 finish of the season – came after the Portage, Michigan, native claimed the pole position and collected top-six points in each stage of the crown jewel event.
RACE RECAP:
Stage One:
For the second time this season, Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar and Daniel Suarez drove their Chevrolet’s to the top-two positions on the qualifying speed chart to sweep the front row and lead the field to the green flag for the 2026 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Choosing the inside lane, the No. 77 Chevrolet jumped out to an early lead and pulled away to over a two-second lead with just three laps complete around the famed 2.5-mile oval. While the teammates pulled away from the pack by the midway point of the opening stage, Suarez also started to make a gain towards Hocevar – closing the gap to just under a half-second before crew chief, Luke Lambert, called his driver to pit road with 19 laps to go for the team’s first scheduled stop of the day. While the opening run looked like it was going to go green all the way, the first pit cycle saw the reigning champion, Kyle Larson, en route to take over the lead. But shortly thereafter, a tire unexpectedly went down in Turn Three, sending his Chevrolet into the wall and ultimately bringing the No. 5 team’s day to an early end. Setting up for an one-lap dash to the finish, varying pit strategies saw Michael McDowell cycle up into the third position to lead the Bowtie brigade to the first green-white checkered flag.
Stage Two:
The next 50-lap stage turned into yet another long green flag run. Settled back into the runner-up position was McDowell as the field approached the second green flag pit cycle of the race. With the gamble to short-pit the stage, crew chief, Travis Peterson, called McDowell to pit road on Lap 75 for four tires and fuel, but then-race leader, Ty Gibbs, quickly followed suit. Sitting just a few cars away from a complete green flag pit cycle, Ross Chastain was one of just a handful of cars still stretching his fuel mileage – finding the top position when the caution flew with just four laps remaining in the stage. With clean-up continuing, the caution laps ultimately brought Stage Two to a close with Chastain collecting the win.
Final Stage:
With the remainder of the field completing their next scheduled stop, Hocevar was welcomed back into the top-five to take the green flag for 56 laps remaining in the race. Lining up on the inside lane for the restart, the Michigan native drove to the fourth position on the opening lap of the stage before the top-15 quickly singled out. A green flag run was building before a caution for debris came out just 10 laps into the stage. With much of the field sitting just outside the fuel window, a necessary trip to pit road saw Alex Bowman climb back into the top-10 to lead the Bowtie brigade to the restart. But the restart was short-lived when a multi-car accident on the opening lap brought the race back under the caution. With the incident shuffling the mid-portion of the leaderboard, Hocevar moved back into the top-10 and at the front of the Chevrolet camp as the field approached the green flag to mark 35 laps remaining. A nearly 12-second margin separated the top-15 of the running order for what turned into the final run of the race. Hocevar settled into the 10th position on the restart to go on and lead Team Chevy to the checkered flag of the series’ third crown jewel race of the season.
Team Chevy Unofficial Top-20 Results
Pos. Driver
9th – Carson Hocevar
13th – Cole Custer
16th – Shane van Gisbergen
17th – Daniel Suarez
18th – Michael McDowell
19th – Alex Bowman
20th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Chevrolet’s season statistics with 22 NASCAR Cup Series races complete:
Wins: 6
Poles: 5
Top-Fives: 38
Top 10s: 74
Stage Wins: 16
The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season continues in two weeks at Iowa Speedway with the Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol on Sunday, August 9, at 3:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on the USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Post-Race Driver Quotes:
Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Finished: 29th
“Frustrating day for the No. 3 BREZTRI AEROSPHERE® (budesonide, glycopyrrolate, and formoterol fumarate) Chevrolet team at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We struggled with grip throughout the race. Our Chevy didn’t really come to life until halfway through the run, and the front would wake up. You could see the difference, and when the switch would flip, we were one of the best cars on track, especially the last six laps of the race. We’ll make notes and regroup once we get home. I’m looking forward to the off week and then getting back at it in Iowa.”
Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Sidelined by damage sustained in an accident in the closing laps of Stage One as a tire went down on his No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM Chevrolet.
Finished: 39th
You guys had the car and the strategy. The team had told you to start to push it just a little bit.. is that what happened, or was it something else?
“We just had a tire let go. I wouldn’t say pushing it had anything to do with it. I was only going three-tenths quicker than I had been with saving fuel. It was just a little bit of bad luck, I guess. I’m proud of this No. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM Chevrolet team. We qualified 10th and did what we had to do to gain the track position to get to the lead. We executed all of that really well. There was still obviously a lot of the race left, but I feel like we were positioning ourselves within the race and within the strategy to set ourselves up well to go after a win. It’s a bummer, but we’ll get back after it at Iowa (Speedway).”
Ty Dillon, No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
Finished: 30th
“It was just a rough day for this No. 10 BREZTRI Chevrolet team. We really didn’t have the speed all weekend. We kept trying things, but I think we just missed it overall on the package for the weekend. We’ll build and get better from it. We’re ready for a week off to recharge and put ourselves in a better position for Iowa.”
Austin Hill, No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
Finished: 33rd
“Long day for our FICO Chevrolet team. On the initial start, our car fired off tight but the guys kept working on it. The front tires took a while to come in. It was really slick on top of the track in all four corners. If I missed the mark by half a tire width, the front end would just slide. Then towards the end, we got pushed into that wreck from behind. Nothing we could do. Clay (Alexander, car chief) and the guys worked extremely hard to try and get us back out, but we ran out of laps. Tough ending but we will take a much needed off week before finishing the season strong.”
Michael McDowell, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 18th
“A good points day here in Indy, but that debris caution hurt us pretty badly and we had to sit on pit road longer to fill up on fuel. Track position is so important here, we had a great NEFCO Chevrolet Camaro and not the result to show for it, so that hurts because I think we had enough for a top-five day, but that’s part of it. Our whole Spire Motorsports organization was fast and we saw that in qualifying, so there is a lot to be proud of coming out of this weekend. We just needed a little bit more, but we will go into the off weekend with some solid momentum leading into the last few weeks of the regular season.”
Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
Finished: 9th
“The first caution just kind of put us into a bad spot on fuel. The reason why we took tires was just because we were going to have to wait on fuel, so we might as well just put four on. I was able to pass three cars, which might have been the most in the field, it seemed like. When we got our No. 77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet in clean air, we were kind of in our own zip code. Our lap times there at the end, we were way faster than most of the field. Overall, it was a good points day for this team. We were the top Chevy of the field, results-wise, and now were the top Chevy in the points standings, so that’s pretty good for us.”
About General Motors
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