NASCAR: ‘Confirmed’ driver change won’t happen in 2023

Aric Almirola was set to retire at the end of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, but now he is slated to return for another year at Stewart-Haas Racing.

The first “confirmed” driver change for the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season came before the 2022 season even began, when Aric Almirola announced that the upcoming 2022 campaign would be his 15th and final season in the series and his fifth and final season as the driver of the #10 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing.

But several months passed and Stewart-Haas Racing had not confirmed his replacement, which was a bit ironic considering the fact that Almirola had said that the timing of the announcement was to give the team and team partners enough time to decide who would be the next driver of the #10 Ford.

Additionally, Stewart-Haas Racing had just signed an official reserve driver shortly before Almirola’s announcement.

Asked in June if he would consider pulling a “Tom Brady” and unretiring — without actually missing any races following his retirement announcement — he said that he would “never say never”.

As time went on, rumors began to swirl that the 38-year-old Fort Walton Beach, Florida native may decide not to retire after all, and those rumors quickly evolved into an idea backed by credible sources.

Now here we are in the middle of silly season, and according to Motorsport, Almirola has indeed changed his mind and plans to return for another year in 2023, with an official announcement set to be made by him and the team within the next few weeks.

This technically makes the 2023 season the second straight season in which the first “confirmed” driver change won’t actually happen.

Back in October 2020, it was “confirmed” that while Matt DiBenedetto would be back behind the wheel of the #21 Ford at Wood Brothers Racing in 2021, he would be replaced by then-Xfinity Series driver Austin Cindric of Team Penske in 2022.

But when Brad Keselowski left Team Penske to replace Ryan Newman at Roush Fenway Racing (now RFK Racing) behind the wheel of the #6 Ford and to become a co-owner of the team, Cindric was instead promoted straight from Roger Penske’s Xfinity Series program to his Cup Series team in 2022. DiBenedetto still ended up being replaced, but by Harrison Burton.

The move worked out well for Cindric, who won the Daytona 500 in his first start as a full-time Cup driver.