Kevin Harvick is set to retire from the NASCAR Cup Series after the 2023 season. Who will replace him behind the wheel of the No. 4 Ford?
At 47 years of age, Kevin Harvick is older than all other full-time NASCAR Cup Series drivers, and following Kurt Busch’s retirement, he has been around the longest, having competed full-time in the sport since 2001.
The 2023 season is set be his 23rd season in the series and 10th behind the wheel of the No. 4 car for Stewart-Haas Racing, and he decided that it will be his last. Many believed that this decision was coming, since he didn’t have a contract to compete in 2024 and even admitted that his initial plan was to retire after the 2021 season.
Who will replace him in 2024? Here are five possibilities.
Possible Kevin Harvick replacements: No. 1 – Cole Custer
It wouldn’t be ideal for Stewart-Haas Racing at the moment, given the fact that Cole Custer was just demoted back to the NASCAR Xfinity Series after a relatively disappointing three-year run with the team in the Cup Series as the driver of the No. 41 Ford, but there are a few reasons why this could be a good move.
Bringing Custer back to the team for 2024 would perhaps bring a sense of familiarity and stability with the team losing Harvick, given how long he has been with the organization. There is a reason — other than the fact that his father Joe Custer is a team executive — why he was simply demoted and not released altogether. He has proven he is capable of running well.
Worth mentioning is also the fact that he was demoted in favor of a driver who was already in-house, as Ryan Preece, his replacement behind the wheel of the No. 41 Ford, signed as Stewart-Haas Racing’s reserve driver before the 2022 season. Bringing Custer back up to the Cup Series in 2024 would simply mean taking a similar approach.
Of course, this really all depends on how Custer performs in 2023. But if he does reestablish himself and gain some confidence back, there’s little reason for the team to look elsewhere.
Possible Kevin Harvick replacements: No. 2 – Riley Herbst
Performance-wise, Riley Herbst has not done all that much (to put it bluntly, absolutely nothing) to justify a promotion to the NASCAR Cup Series. Some have called into question why Stewart-Haas Racing have even brought him back to their Xfinity Series team for a third season in 2023.
The 23-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native is winless in two seasons with the organization and winless in three-plus seasons with top-tier Xfinity Series organizations, having spent a year and change with Joe Gibbs Racing prior to his arrival as Chase Briscoe’s replacement behind the wheel of the No. 98 Ford.
In three full seasons with those two top-tier teams, he has finished no higher than 10th place in the championship standings.
However, with Cole Custer having been demoted back to the Xfinity Series for the 2023 season, Herbst is set to have a direct measuring stick within Stewart-Haas Racing on which to base his performance. If he can rise to the occasion against a driver who, despite struggling in the Cup Series, has been tough to beat in the Xfinity Series, perhaps a second look will be justified.
What’s also worth mentioning here is sponsorship, which can play a key role in any driver getting or not getting a ride. Herbst has been backed by Monster Energy for several years, and if they are willing to do what they’ve done with Ty Gibbs and move up to the Cup Series with a young driver, Herbst is currently in the best position to benefit.
He’s still in a position to prove himself, however, and it won’t be easy.
Possible Kevin Harvick replacements: No. 3 – Zane Smith
Right now — January 2023, more than one year before the 2024 season is scheduled to get underway — Zane Smith makes the most sense for Stewart-Haas Racing with Kevin Harvick retiring.
Smith is set to return to Front Row Motorsports as the reigning NASCAR Truck Series champion in 2023 after signing a contract extension that contains options through 2026. He is also set to compete in select Cup Series races for the team throughout the 2023 season.
The 23-year-old Huntington Beach, California native finished runner-up in his first two seasons in the Truck Series in 2020 and 2021 when he competed for GMS Racing and Chevrolet. He sent out over 100 calls when he lost his ride and only one team called him back. He rewarded them with a title.
With Smith now aligned with Ford for the foreseeable future, he is the logical choice to make the step up. Ford are only set to run four full-time entries in the Xfinity Series this year, and two of those were discussed in the first two slides.
While he has never competed full-time in the Xfinity Series, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that Smith has a leg up on Cole Custer and Riley Herbst for a premier Ford Cup seat at this stage.
Worth mentioning is the fact that Smith got the unexpected opportunity to make his Cup Series debut in 2022, subbing for RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway when Buescher was sidelined due to COVID-19 protocols.
He finished in 17th place, higher than both of Front Row Motorsports’ full-time drivers (Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland), and even higher than teammate and team co-owner Brad Keselowski.
Possible Kevin Harvick replacements: No. 4 – Martin Truex Jr.
Amid speculation that he might retire, Martin Truex Jr. made the decision in 2022 to return to the NASCAR Cup Series for another year at Joe Gibbs Racing in 2023. But he refused to commit to the team beyond 2024, noting that it had taken him six months just to decide on 2023.
Many have assumed that if Truex opts not to return to Joe Gibbs Racing for what would be a sixth season behind the wheel of the No. 19 Toyota, he would simply retire. However, he could also opt for a change of scenery.
After winning at least four races five times in a six-year span, Truex went winless in the opening season of the Gen 7 car last year. In fact, he didn’t finish a single race inside the top three, and he failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
If he has another disappointing year in 2023, could he look for a ride elsewhere?
It may be questionable for Stewart-Haas Racing to replace a retiring Kevin Harvick with another driver in his 40s, one who is set to be 43 by the time the 2023 season ends.
But Truex has long been adamant that he competes simply because he wants to compete and he feels he is competitive, not because he feels obligated to do so. If he can back that up after a down year in 2022, the 2017 champion has no reason to stop.
Additionally, he is four and a half years younger than Harvick, so it’s not a sure thing that he would only be signing with Stewart-Haas Racing for just one or even two seasons.
Interestingly, longtime sponsor Bass Pro Shops also has a lengthy history with Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Tony Stewart. So if a deal were to come to fruition, the sponsorship side of things shouldn’t be an issue, which is pretty significant in this day and age to say the very least.
Possible Kevin Harvick replacements: No. 5 – Alex Bowman
On paper, Hendrick Motorsports shouldn’t look to replace Alex Bowman after the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, but the door remains open to that possibility.
Bowman is the only one of the team’s four drivers who didn’t sign a contract extension during the 2022 season, and while you could make the case that this was true because he was already under contract through 2023, Kyle Larson was also already under contract through 2023 yet signed through 2026. Chase Elliott signed through 2027 and William Byron signed through 2025.
Ally Financial clearly like having Bowman as the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet, but their contract with Hendrick Motorsports is also set to expire at the end of the 2023 season.
In the off chance that Bowman becomes available, he would be too good for Stewart-Haas Racing to pass up.
While he is by no means a world-beater, he has qualified for the playoffs — and advanced to at least the round of 12 — in each of his first five seasons with Hendrick Motorsports. He has found victory lane at least once in each of the last four seasons, including a career-high four times in 2021.
And at 29 years of age, he is still relatively young. Stewart-Haas Racing would know exactly what they were getting by signing the Tucson, Arizona native, and they wouldn’t need to sign someone presumably nearing the end of his career in doing so.
This option also prevents them from taking a risk on somebody much younger, who could perhaps be signed when Aric Almirola is (actually) ready to retire.