A semi-retired NASCAR driver whose 2014 Coke Zero 400 win put him in the Chase, followed by Xfinity wins in 2024 and 2025 after the Cup chapter closed.
Aric Almirola is an American stock car driver born on 14 March 1984. His first Cup win came at the 2014 Coke Zero 400, and he drove full-time for Richard Petty Motorsports and Stewart-Haas Racing before winning three Xfinity races in 2024.
Aric Almirola is a semi-retired NASCAR driver who raced full-time in the Cup Series for more than a decade. His career included a first Cup win at Daytona in 2014, a Talladega victory in 2018 and a New Hampshire win in 2021. He later returned to the Xfinity Series, where he won races at Martinsville, Kansas, Daytona and Phoenix.
Who is Aric Almirola?
Aric Michael Almirola was born on 14 March 1984 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He is an American stock car driver who is now semi-retired, and he last competed part-time in the Xfinity Series for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 19 Toyota.
Across his career he has raced full-time in the Cup Series and part-time in the Truck Series, along with the ARCA Menards Series and its East and West divisions.
He was also the first Cuban driver to reach the Chase, which he did in 2014.
How did Almirola start in racing?
Almirola began go-karting at eight, and at fourteen he started racing nationally. In his first World Karting Association race he took pole, and he ended that year fourth in the points. Two years later he moved up to modifieds, where he collected several Rookie of the Year awards.
What did his early NASCAR years look like?
The 2002 season took him into NASCAR's Sun Belt Weekly Racing Division, where he was runner-up in the rookie standings. A year later he took five pole positions. He was among the first participants in NASCAR's Drive for Diversity programme in 2004, and he signed as a development driver with Joe Gibbs Racing.
That 2004 season at Ace Speedway brought him two wins and eleventh place in the points. He added five more wins at the track in 2005, the same year his Truck debut was with Morgan-Dollar Motorsports, where two of his first four races ended in the top ten.
How did the 2006 and 2007 seasons go with Gibbs?
In 2006 Almirola ran every Truck Series race for Spears Motorsports as part of the Gibbs development programme. He finished with three top tens, a best of ninth, and an eighteenth-place finish in the standings. He also drove nine Busch Series races for Gibbs and served as a test driver for J. J. Yeley and Denny Hamlin.
That year he won a first pole at Milwaukee, qualifying a Gibbs car for Hamlin. In 2007 he ran ten Busch races in each of two Gibbs cars, and he won the pole again at Milwaukee and at Daytona's Orbitz 300.
The most unusual Milwaukee race of that year involved a helicopter. Hamlin could not get to the track in time, so Almirola started and led the first 43 laps. Hamlin took over at lap 59, won the race, and Almirola was credited with his first Busch Series win because he had started it.
After asking for his release, he moved to Dale Earnhardt Inc. once Ginn Racing had been sold. There he drove a Chevrolet in five races in 2007, with a best finish of 30th.
What did the 2008 and 2009 Cup seasons bring?
In 2008 Almirola co-drove the No. 8 United States Army Chevrolet with Mark Martin in the Sprint Cup Series. His best finish that year was eighth at Bristol, and his best start was third at Martinsville. For 2009 he became the full-time driver of the car.
Seven races into 2009 he lost the ride for lack of sponsorship. In October 2009 he took a contract dispute with his former team owners to court, and the case was dropped a month later after an out-of-court settlement.
He then drove a five-race deal with Key Motorsports in the Nationwide Series and returned to the Truck Series with Billy Ballew Motorsports, where he put together a run of seven straight finishes of eighth or better.
How did Almirola revive his career in Trucks and Nationwide?
In 2010 he drove a Toyota for Billy Ballew in the Truck Series and won at Dover and at Michigan, holding off Todd Bodine and Kyle Busch at Michigan. He finished second in the points to Bodine.
He was also a standby driver for Hendrick Motorsports on several occasions in 2010, in case a regular driver had to miss a race. At Talladega in the fall he finished second to Kyle Busch by 0.002 seconds, the closest finish in Truck Series history.
In 2011 he drove the No. 88 Nationwide car for JR Motorsports, winning two poles, collecting eighteen top tens and ending fourth in the standings. He then signed with Richard Petty Motorsports for a full-time Sprint Cup ride in the No. 43 Ford.
What happened at Richard Petty Motorsports?
Richard Petty Motorsports gave Almirola a one-year deal in 2012, replacing A. J. Allmendinger in the famous No. 43. He took pole at Charlotte, managed a lone top five and four further top tens, and finished 20th in the points.
His best run that year came at Kansas, where he qualified fifth and led 69 laps before a tyre failure. A later crash, with the car ablaze at the front, ended the promising run.
In 2013 he finished a career-high 18th in the points and posted the most consecutive top tens in the No. 43 since Bobby Hamilton in 1996. Todd Parrott, his crew chief, was suspended for breaching NASCAR's substance abuse policy after the Talladega weekend. In January 2014 RPM signed Almirola to a three-year extension, backed by Smithfield Foods.
How did the 2014 Coke Zero 400 change his career?
The 2014 season opened badly, with a 12-car wreck at the Daytona 500. Almirola then took third at Bristol, his best Cup finish up to that point, before a crash at Auto Club Speedway with Brian Scott.
His breakthrough came at the 2014 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. He avoided two major wrecks and led the field when rain stopped the race after 112 laps. The win was the first for the No. 43 since 1999, and it came 30 years to the day after Richard Petty's 200th win.
The victory also secured a place in the 2014 Chase for the Sprint Cup, a first for him and for a Cuban driver. He was eliminated after the first round of the Chase.
In 2015 he had six top tens and was consistent in the top fifteen. He finished 17th in the standings, the highest of any driver who missed the Chase. He returned to the No. 43 in 2016 with Brian Scott as his teammate.
What were the 2016 and 2017 seasons like?
In July 2016 Almirola drove the No. 98 car to victory in the Xfinity race at Daytona, beating Justin Allgaier by 0.003 seconds after a late caution was reviewed. His Cup season that year had only one top-ten finish.
In 2017 Almirola started the year without a teammate and finished fourth at the Daytona 500. A 35-point penalty followed the Talladega race. Then, on 13 May 2017, he was involved in a violent crash at Kansas Speedway involving Joey Logano and Danica Patrick, when Logano's brake rotor failed.
Almirola was cut out of his car and airlifted to hospital. He was diagnosed with a compression fracture of a T5 vertebra, and he was released after overnight observation. He missed several races, with Regan Smith and others standing in, before he was cleared to return at Loudon on 12 July 2017.
In September 2017 Smithfield Foods announced it would leave the team at the end of the season, and Almirola then left Richard Petty Motorsports.
How did the Stewart-Haas years go?
From 2018 to 2023 Almirola drove the No. 10 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing. In his first season he finished fifth in the points, the highest finish of his career, and he won his second Cup race at Talladega.
His 2018 Daytona 500 ended in a last-lap collision with Austin Dillon while he was leading, which dropped him to eleventh. At the inaugural Charlotte Roval he barely advanced to the Round of 12, and at Talladega that fall he was running second on the final lap when Kurt Busch ran out of fuel and Almirola took the win.
In 2019 he made the playoffs again, finishing second at Texas, his best result of that season. He was eliminated in the Round of 16 and finished 14th in the points.
In 2020 he finished third at the GEICO 500, after being spun by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He then led the most laps at Pocono the following week, but a final stop on pit road went wrong and cost him the lead. At Kentucky he led 128 of the first 137 laps, but his car faded in traffic and Cole Custer won.
In 2021 he won his duel and started third at the Daytona 500, but contact with Christopher Bell knocked him out on lap fourteen. At New Hampshire, with 57 laps to go, he passed Ryan Blaney for the lead and won his third career race after NASCAR shortened the event due to darkness. He finished the season 15th in the points.
Did Almirola retire in 2022?
In January 2022 Almirola announced he would retire from full-time racing after that season. In August he said he would stay, and he drove the No. 10 again in 2023. He started 2022 with a fifth at Daytona, and that year he recorded two top fives and seven top tens without a win.
In October 2023 he announced that he would not return to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2024.
What did the 2023 Xfinity road-course races involve?
In 2023 he went back to the Xfinity Series for two road-course races, on a part-time basis. He finished 24th at Circuit of the Americas for SS-Green Light Racing. At Sonoma he drove the RSS Racing No. 28 to victory, becoming the first Xfinity winner at Sonoma and giving RSS its first win as an organisation.
How did Almirola's return to Joe Gibbs Racing go in 2024?
In 2024 Almirola returned to Joe Gibbs Racing for part-time Xfinity starts in the No. 19 and No. 20 cars. He won at Martinsville with the No. 20 team, and he also took a US$100,000 bonus from the first Dash 4 Cash race of the year.
A physical altercation with Bubba Wallace at a weekly competition meeting, which the team said Almirola had instigated, led Joe Gibbs Racing to suspend him indefinitely just before the Charlotte race. Ty Gibbs replaced him for that period. Almirola later returned at Indianapolis and found success in the playoffs, winning at Kansas and Martinsville.
He ended the season 17th in the final standings, ahead of ten full-time drivers, from fourteen starts. His results included three wins, 415 laps led and an average finish of 9.2.
What did 2025 bring?
In 2025 he worked with Joe Gibbs Racing and Young Life, a Christian organisation, on nine part-time Xfinity events. He won at Phoenix by 0.045 seconds over Alex Bowman, the 26th closest finish in the series' history. He then added playoff wins at Bristol and Las Vegas.
At Indianapolis Austin Hill was penalised five laps and suspended for a race after hooking Almirola into the outside wall. Almirola finished second at Phoenix, and the No. 19 team took the owners' title.
What does the career summary show?
| Year | Series | Team | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Truck Series | Morgan-Dollar Motorsports | Two top tens in four races |
| 2006 | Truck Series | Spears Motorsports | Best ninth, 18th in points |
| 2010 | Truck Series | Billy Ballew Motorsports | Two wins, second in points |
| 2011 | Nationwide Series | JR Motorsports | Two poles, fourth in points |
| 2012 | Cup Series | Richard Petty Motorsports | Pole at Charlotte, 20th in points |
| 2013 | Cup Series | Richard Petty Motorsports | Career-high 18th in points |
| 2014 | Cup Series | Richard Petty Motorsports | First Cup win at Daytona |
| 2018 | Cup Series | Stewart-Haas Racing | Second Cup win at Talladega, fifth in points |
| 2021 | Cup Series | Stewart-Haas Racing | Third career win at New Hampshire, 15th in points |
| 2024 | Xfinity Series | Joe Gibbs Racing | Three wins, 17th in points |
| 2025 | Xfinity Series | Joe Gibbs Racing | Three wins, owners' championship |
What is Almirola's legacy?
Almirola won Cup races at Daytona in 2014, Talladega in 2018 and New Hampshire in 2021. He was also the first Cuban driver to reach the Chase, which he did in 2014.
His career has been shaped by injury, most notably the 2017 Kansas crash, and by a return to full-time racing after he had announced his retirement in 2022. Later he went back to the Xfinity Series and won there regularly.
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