2025 NASCAR Power Rankings, Week 8: Darlington

Please don’t click away. We did not, in fact, post an actual power rankings for Pit Box Press this week.

On the other hand, Jey and I did create a funny little post for April Fool’s Day on my own personal blog, so if you’d like to take a peek at that, here’s a link.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming, a weekend full of bent fenders and bent tempers led to a 10-caution affair in Martinsville with local legend Denny Hamlin coming out on top after 400 laps.

Hamlin is now the season’s fifth different winner in the first seven races, undoubtedly shaking our rankings going into this weekend’s race in Darlington.

Without any further ado, let’s get back to the rankings!

1. Christopher Bell (Last Week: 1)

Last Three Races: 12th, 29h, 2nd

Jey: Bell rebounded from his wreck at Miami in almost perfect fashion, planting his DeWalt Outdoors Toyota on the pole before finishing second to his teammate in last weekend’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville.

Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens appeared to lose a bit of momentum after their streak of wins from the first four weeks of the season, but a great run at the Paperclip recouped all that and then some.

This firmly entrenches the three-time winner this season at the top of the list for the third consecutive week and cools his seat at the top for at least this week.

2. Kyle Larson (Last Week: 3)

Last Three Races: 9th, 1st, 5th

Jey: The Miami winner put on another stout showing in Virginia, notching his fourth straight top-10 and putting him just a notch below the top of this week’s rankings. 

Larson and Cliff Daniels found their groove after a slow start to the year, and that should put the rest of the field on high alert.

When these guys are on, they’re tough to beat at practically every track. 

The entire No. 5 team will look to carry this momentum into throwback weekend at Darlington where Larson will look to “earn his stripes” and bring home his second trophy of the year.

3. Denny Hamlin (Last Week: 10)

Last Three Races: 25th, 5th, 1st

Tanner: In classic Denny Hamlin fashion, the veteran racer returned to his home state and cooked up something special for the crowd, leading 274 of 400 laps en route to his first victory of the season.

Hamlin played the field like a fiddle, conserving his tires while out in clean air and maneuvering through lapped traffic with relative ease.

After the victory, Hamlin pulled out a flag that declared that it was the No. 11 team against the world, putting the rest of the series on notice that he and new crew chief Chris Gayle are going to be a formidable pair.

Outside of Martinsville, the 23XI team owner laid down a solid result for new sponsor Progressive at Homestead as well and nearly won Daytona and Phoenix prior to breaking through at Martinsville. The rest of the field should see that the No. 11 team isn’t going away any time soon, regardless of their driver’s age.

4. Bubba Wallace (Last Week: 8)

Last Three Races: 28th, 3rd, 3rd

Tanner: If it wasn’t for his car owner having such a dominant performance, it could have just as easily been Bubba Wallace’s name on the mighty grandfather clock.

Bubba kicked off this season well with a win in the Duels before a top-10 run in Atlanta propelled the team forward. A 20th-place effort in COTA didn’t tell the whole story as the 23XI racer notched a stage win in that event before incidents outside of his control took him out of contention at both Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Sitting eighth in the points after seven races isn’t a common sight for Wallace as he’s grown accustomed to rising to the challenge as the season wears on, but 2025 has shown the world a different version of Bubba.

Back-to-back top-5s at demanding race tracks shows that Wallace and new crew chief Charles Denike are gelling quite well and should be making a trip or two to victory lane in the near future.

5. Tyler Reddick (Last Week: 2)

Last Three Races: 24th, 8th, 14th

Tanner: Outside of Martinsville, many expected Tyler Reddick to be a major player in races at Las Vegas and Homestead, but the No. 45 team was hardly in contention at either facility.

To make matters worse, Reddick tagged Ty Gibbs this past weekend to cause a caution that prompted a less-than-ideal response from the young JGR driver over the radio.

Even still, a 14th-place result at Martinsville was likely music to Reddick’s ears, considering his record at the circuit’s shortest track.

While it’s too early to sound the alarms on the No. 45 team, their relative lack of pace at tracks they’ve either won at or contended at in the past is starting to grow worrisome. If they come out of Darlington with anything less than a top-5, I expect them to fall down this list.

6. William Byron (Last Week: 4)

Last Three Races: 4th, 12th, 22nd

Tanner: A blazing start to the season for the No. 24 team seems to have been extinguished these past two weeks.

Kicking off the season with four finishes of sixth or better in the first five races propelled Byron to an early points lead that he’s been able to maintain despite his struggles.

Even still, Homestead and Martinsville are tracks that Hendrick Motorsports (and particularly, the No. 24 team) expect to compete, and these two finishes outside the top-10 should strike some worry in the back-to-back Daytona 500 champions.

Heading to a track in Darlington where Byron has a 10.3 average finish in the NextGen era, the Axalta car should rebound in their 2015 Jeff Gordon throwback.

7. Ryan Blaney (Last Week: 5)

Last Three Races: 35th, 36th, 11th

Jey: Ryan Blaney finally had a weekend where nothing went sideways, and his motor stayed intact the entire time.

Blaney did suffer the lingering effects of his engine woes as a terrible qualifying draw would put him 32nd to start last week’s race.

However, the whole 12 crew grinded it out and were able to bring home a very respectable 11th-place finish.

This should build some momentum as we head to the Lady in Black this week as the team hopes to avoid both mechanical and crash troubles two weeks in a row.

8. Joey Logano (Last Week: 9)

Last Three Races: 14th, 15th, 8th

Jey: Logano had a very solid drive this week, finally notching his first top-10 on the year and snagging another Playoff point on strategy in stage 1.

Logano and Wolfe finally earned a finish that reflects how well they’ve ran in the beginning and middle stages of these races thus far.

Despite their troubles finishing races, the No. 22 team looks poised to compete heading into Darlington where Joey took the victory in the first NextGen race at the Track Too Tough To Tame.

As such, they are definitely going to be ones to watch this weekend.

9. Alex Bowman (Last Week: 6)

Last Three Races: 7th, 2nd, 27th

Tanner: A third-place starting spot for Sunday’s Cook Out 400 seemed to line Alex Bowman up for another great run to kick off an already-awesome season for the No. 48 bunch.

What transpired was Bowman’s worst performance of the season.

Bowman’s car never found the handle to make for a fast and comfortable ride for the HMS driver, dropping out of the top-10 on the initial run and eventually fading to the end of the lead lap.

Had it not been for a poorly-timed caution after he pitted for tires in the third stage, Bowman might have been able to bounce back from his earlier woes; instead, he settled for his worst result of the season and fell down our list.

10. Josh Berry (Last Week: 7)

Last Three Races: 1st, 17th, 32nd

Jey: Another week, another incident outside of Berry and the No. 21 team’s control costing them a great run.

After leading 40 laps early, Bubba Wallace would make incidental contact with Berry on pit road near the end of the first stage.

Berry’s Wood Brothers Ford lost power following the contact. Though they were able to continue and finish the event, the ensuing battery issues knocked them completely out of contention.

This team has not suffered from a lack of pace since Berry’s surprise win at Las Vegas; they’ve just had a terrible string of luck that they will look to right going forward.

Regardless of their recent results, this first-year pairing has proven they’re not just gonna be a flash in the pan winner like some would argue they were last year.

(Top Photo Credit: Jim Dedmon/Imagn Images)