NASCAR Cup Series: Will Ross Chastain drive for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2020?

Ross Chastain will not drive for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2019 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. But will he drive for the team in the 2020 Cup Series season?

Ross Chastain entered the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series season having competed in the series on a full-time basis since the 2015 season, and he had never driven full-time for a team other than JD Motorsports.

The 26-year-old Alva, Florida native drove for JD Motorsports in all 99 of the races in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons, and he drove for the team in each of the first 23 races of the 2018 season.

However, for the first time since he drove for TriStar Motorsports in the 2014 season finale, Chastain drove for a team other than JD Motorsports when he drove for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 24th race of the 2018 season at Darlington Raceway.

This race ended up being the first of three races in which Chastain drove for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2018 season, and he was impressive in all three of them.

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Chastain took the pole position, his first career Xfinity Series pole position, for the race at Darlington Raceway in his #42 Chevrolet. He led 90 of the 147-lap race’s first 113 laps before he was involved in an incident with Kevin Harvick that took him out of contention for the victory. He ended up finishing in 25th place, two laps off the lead lap.

Chastain proceeded to qualify in fifth place for the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which was the 26th and final race of the regular season. He climbed his way to the race lead by the race’s third lap and ended up leading 180 of its 200 laps en route to earning his first career Xfinity Series victory.

In his third and final race driving for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2018 season, which was the 27th race of the season and the opening race of the round of 12 of the playoffs at Richmond Raceway, Chastain qualified in third place. While he did not lead any of the race’s 250 laps, he finished in second.

As a result of his stellar performance driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, which included him leading 270 of the 597 laps in the three races (270 of the 347 laps in two of them) in which he drove for the team, the team signed him to be the full-time driver of the #42 Chevrolet in the 2019 Xfinity Series season.

However, following twin FBI raids on the headquarters of DC Solar, the primary sponsor of the #42 Chevrolet, and on the home of the company’s CEO, Jeff Carpoff, in late December, Chip Ganassi Racing were left without a sponsor for the #42 Chevrolet.

As a result, they made the hard decision not to field the #42 Chevrolet in the 2019 Xfinity Series season, leaving Chastain without a ride in a season that many people believed would result in him being one of the primary championship contenders.

That said, Chastain is still set to compete full-time in the Cup Series for Premium Motorsports, one of the sport’s smallest and most underfunded teams, as the driver of the #15 Chevrolet in the 2019 season. In 36 races driving for the team, he has recorded three top 20 finishes, including a career-high 18th place finish in the April race at Texas Motor Speedway in the 2018 season.

However, despite the fact that he will not be driving for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2019 Xfinity Series season, Chastain is still tied to the team.

@CGRTeams says in a statement that @RossChastain is free to to compete with another #NASCAR team, but "is still tied to us."
— Chris Knight (@Knighter01) January 4, 2019

This past December, Kurt Busch signed a one-year contract to drive for Chip Ganassi Racing in the 2019 season as the replacement for Jamie McMurray behind the wheel of the #1 Chevrolet.

Busch has proven over the course of the past few seasons that he still has what it takes to compete on a high level even though he is 40 years old. In fact, he nearly qualified for the 2018 Championship 4 and may very well have done so had it not been for his involvement in late incident in the round of 8 finale at ISM Raceway.

However, if Busch ends up not having a great season in his first season driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, will Chastain replace him for the 2020 season?

At this point, it looks that way. Chastain showed what he can do when given top-tier equipment, and Chip Ganassi Racing rewarded him by giving him a full-time ride for the 2019 Xfinity Series season before that ride was essentially yanked out from underneath of him by a third party.

The fact that Chastain is still tied to Chip Ganassi Racing shows that they still feel that he can be an asset to the team, and it shows that they feel that he can be an asset to the team beyond the 2019 season.

Also, the fact that Chastain has experience driving in the Cup Series, albeit for a small and underfunded team, and the fact that he is set to continue to do so in the 2019 season should bode well for him in the eyes of Chip Ganassi Racing.

This ordinarily might not be the case considering the fact that drivers who drive for small and underfunded teams often go overlooked.

However, the fact that Chastain has proven that he has what it takes to compete on a high level when given top-tier equipment should render any poor results he earns driving for Premium Motorsports as almost meaningless to Chip Ganassi Racing as they weigh their options for the 2020 season.

The additional experience he gains in the Cup Series driving for Premium Motorsports once again, however, should be valued by Chip Ganassi Racing, as referenced above.

As a result, if the door opens and Chip Ganassi Racing do not re-sign Busch to drive the #1 Chevrolet in the 2020 season, expect Chastain to replace him and become Kyle Larson’s teammate.

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Will Ross Chastain replace Kurt Busch as the driver of the #1 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet in the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season and become Kyle Larson’s teammate? With the 2019 season having not yet begun, the answer to this question likely won’t be known for several months. However, in the meantime, don’t rule out this possibility.

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