Kyle Busch’s historic 19-straight seasons with a win ended in 2024. He came close several times and had some good stretches, but he was not the Kyle Busch everyone expected him to be. Will he win a race in 2025? Here are a few reasons why he will and will not win a race this season.
Good Late Regular Season Results
In the final three-race stretch of the regular season, Busch finished 4th and ended the season in back-to-back 2nd places. He showed good speed to end the regular season, which is a promising sign of a better 2025.
He nearly had the win at Daytona last August but was passed by Harrison Burton on the last lap.
“Besides wrecking him(Burton), nothing to do in that situation. I could have jumped up in front of the 21 and probably taken that, but I don’t know that he would have kept straight on me,” said Busch after the race.
The last three races were Busch’s best stretch of the season. The speed and pace were both there, but he just could not secure a win. Those results should give Busch fans hope for a much better 2025.
He’s Kyle Busch…
After his streak of 19 consecutive seasons with a Cup win came to an end, plenty of people may count Busch out going forward, but until he retires, the future NASCAR Hall of Famer should not be discounted.
With 63 wins, Busch is ninth all-time on the most wins in NASCAR history list. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion and Cup Series Regular Season Series Champion still has plenty to give.
Kyle Busch is the man who has given NASCAR fans countless memorable moments, on and off the track. He is just hardwired differently, and because of that, he is going to be hungrier than ever to get a win.
He has 231 victories in all three NASCAR national series. Busch has too much experience and grit to go winless in back-to-back seasons. He will overcome whatever slump he went through in 2024 and will get a win in 2025.
Good Odds
Despite a poor 2024, according to DraftKings, Kyle Busch has the 10th best odds(+2200) to win the Championship. The oddsmakers seem to think Busch has a decent chance to not only win races, but collect his third NASCAR Championship.
Busch has never won a Daytona 500, so maybe he comes out swinging in 2025, breaks his 57-race winless streak and snatches his first Daytona 500 victory.
Young Talent
NASCAR fans saw Harrison Burton take a win away from Busch at Daytona last year. While Burton does not have a seat in Cup this year, several prominent, young drivers could steal wins from the veteran Busch.
Ty Gibbs has yet to capture his first Cup Series win; however, he is approaching the century mark in races started. At around 100 races, young drivers typically get their first win. Gibbs is very likely to secure at least one win this season.
Carson Hocevar is another young driver who could get his first win in 2025. While he only has 45 starts, the 21-year-old made some big strides in his rookie campaign. It may be a little early to pencil him in for a year in his sophomore year, but he is another young driver Busch will have to get used to on the grid.
At 25 years old, John Hunter Nemechek (77 starts) is another young driver who could get their first win in 2025. Even Zane Smith, with only 45 starts but is driving with Spire, who is poised for a good year, could earn his first victory.
Busch obviously has a lot of experience in NASCAR, but he does not have much experience racing these up-and-coming drivers.
In his runner-up finish at Daytona last August, he raced up front with a handful of drivers he had limited experience against, including Burton and Parker Retzlaff. Busch might see them as just other cars to beat, but there is something to going up against someone who is relatively new to the series.
Trending Down
In 2023, his first year at RCR, Busch led 241 laps. In 2022, his last year at JGR, he led 691. That said, he won three races in 2023 and only one in 2022, but last year, he only led 231 laps, the fewest in a full season for Busch in his career.
He also only accumulated 766 points last year, also a career worst. Plus, his number of top fives(five) and top 10s(10) were both down from 2023(10 and 17, respectively). With several major indicators trending down, aside from hope and optimism, why would you think Busch would get a win in 2025?
Rough 10-race stretch in the playoffs
The first reason Busch will win in 2025 is his late regular-season performance. It only fits that the last reason why he will not is a direct counterpoint to the first point: he was awful in the 10-race playoffs.
In the final 10 races, Busch only managed one top-10 finish (the opening race at Atlanta, in which he finished 7th). If you remove his only top-10 finish from the playoff races, Busch’s average finish was 22.1.
Of course, his lackluster playoff performance could be because he was not a playoff driver, and, as a courtesy, non-playoff drivers won’t always race playoff drivers as hard. However, several non-playoff drivers went to victory lane, which did not stop them from competing, and it should not have stopped Busch from competing either.
