With only three races left in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and Justin Haley on his way out the door at Spire Motorsports, the organization will need to act quickly to find his replacement.
Here are the top three candidates to take over for Haley in the organization’s No. 7 Chevrolet next year.
Daniel Suarez
Easily the NASCAR Cup Series’ most coveted free agent, Daniel Suarez likely has more than a few options on the table for 2026. But despite being a lame duck since early summer, the Mexico-born driver has yet to announce any plans.
Suarez would be a great choice for Spire Motorsports if for no other reason than the fact he would bring with him a natural fanbase in the thousands of Mexico natives who follow the sport.
Suarez is also a two-time Cup Series race winner and playoff qualifier who might be able to share insights from the time he’s spent at some of NASCAR’s premier organizations. These include Joe Gibbs Racing, the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing and, most recently, Trackhouse Racing.
In 2022 at Sonoma, Daniel Suarez became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race.
Hearing Tony Rivera call him home was something special. pic.twitter.com/2V3cTQeZ2j
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 6, 2024
The biggest roadblock to Suarez joining forces with Spire might be one of the drivers he would have has a teammate. Suarez and now-Spire driver Michael McDowell memorably came to blows six years ago at Phoenix Raceway. If there’s any bad blood left over from that tussle, Suarez might not be the best fit for Spire.
That said, McDowell — one of NASCAR’s most congenial drivers — would likely leave the past in the past for the good of the organization.
Harrison Burton
After an up-and-down three NASCAR Cup Series seasons with the fabled Wood Brothers, Harrison Burton took quite a demotion when he signed on with little-known AM Racing to run the full 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
Burton has made the most of the situation, however, by racking up 10 top-10 finishes — including a pair of top-fives — and securing a playoff berth.
The second-generation driver who’s the son of 21-time Cup Series race winner Jeff Burton scored his first career Cup Series win in the penultimate race of the 2024 regular season. The only problem? It was essentially too little too late. By then, the Wood Brothers had already announced Burton wouldn’t return in 2025 for a fourth season.
Burton has a great racing pedigree, though, and has proven capable of winning. And that’s not only in Cup but also in Xfinity, where he triumphed four times over two seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing before going Cup racing in 2022.
Burton’s success — although sporadic — coupled with his gene pool, could make him a very intriguing hire to replace Justin Haley at Spire Motorsports. And Spire could be an equally attractive destination for Burton, who would undoubtedly love to return to the Cup Series after announcing just last week that he won’t be back at AM Racing in 2026.
— Harrison Burton (@HBurtonRacing) October 8, 2025
Riley Herbst
No one in the NASCAR Cup Series driver has endured a more disappointing season than rookie Riley Herbst.
Ranked next-to-last in the standings among drivers who’ve started every race in 2025, Herbst has struggled from Day One at 23XI Racing.
Given the high bar set by his team co-owners — NBA legend Michael Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin — Herbst is almost certainly on the hot seat.
If if 23XI Racing ends up losing one of its three charters once its legal disputes with NASCAR are settled in December, Herbst — not 2025 playoff-qualifying teammates Tyler Reddick or Bubba Wallace — will almost certainly be the odd man out in 2026.
If that happens, will Spire Motorsports invite him to replace Justin Haley? He’d be far from a shoe-in. But he would also likely be on the shortlist of potential candidates for the job.
