UPDATE 3: Harrison Burton will return as the driver of Wood Brothers Racing’s No. 21 Ford in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2024, he confirmed Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.
The 22-year-old driver currently ranks 31st in the Cup Series standings. He confirmed the news to The Athletic.
Burton has four top-10 finishes in the last two seasons, with a best result of third place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in his rookie year. He had acknowledged in August that he had been a topic of rumors in recent weeks but that he preferred to stay with the Wood Brothers as his career progressed.
— NASCAR.com —
UPDATE 2 9-22-2023: While not a confirmation, the Wood Brothers Racing Texas preview sounds like there will be no change to the team next year:
Harrison Burton and the No. 21 DEX Imaging team are headed into this weekend’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Texas Motor Speedway with an eye on the future.
Crew chief Jeremy Bullins said the DEX Imaging team plans to spend the remainder of the 2023 season putting themselves in position to dramatically improve their performance next year.
“For our team headed to Texas, we are just trying to learn and look ahead to next year as we continue to work with Harrison and understand what he’s looking for from our cars to find speed,” Bullins said. “Obviously, a year from now we want to be in the Playoffs, so we need to approach this week as an opportunity to learn as much as we can and have some good notes to work from.”
— Wood Brothers Racing —
UPDATE 9-6-2023: The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi reports that Harrison Burton will return to the No. 21 of Wood Brothers Racing and an announcement is expected soon.
NEWS: Harrison Burton expected to return to Wood Brothers Racing in 2024, sources tell @TheAthletic, with an announcement expected soon. https://t.co/dFTExZAVJk
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) September 5, 2023
ORIGINAL POST 9-6-2023: [T]here’s one piece of the 2024 puzzle that has yet to be filled: the driver of the Wood Brothers’ No. 21 car.
At Darlington, Burton told Frontstretch that a 2024 return isn’t a done deal despite the news of a crew chief swap for next season.
“Yeah, we’ll see, it’s been ongoing,” Burton said. “I think a lot of it depends on how we run, right?
“We’ve shown improvements; we’ve also had weekends where we weren’t as good as we need to be. But, you know, I think this group has had a lot of confidence in me from the beginning that I can do it, it’s just about building into the driver I know I can be and that they believe in me to be.
“The swap is a good sign of that commitment to improve together. We’ll see, but luckily for me, I stay out of those conversations. I’m able to just drive, and I’ve got a great group of people around me that help with all of that, and I can just drive a race car.”