What many thought would become another Talladega race full of drama and disaster turned into a much more muted affair with Austin Cindric taking the lead during the last round of pit stops and holding onto the lead to score his third career victory at Talladega.
As we teased in our most recent power rankings, Jey and I don’t really hold the results of a superspeedway race against drivers, especially ones that were caught in messes not of their making.
Let’s waste no more time and get on with the power rankings!
1. Christopher Bell (Last Week: 1)
Last Three Races: 3rd, 8th, 35th
Tanner: Christopher Bell’s race came to an untimely end toward the end of stage 1 when teammate Denny Hamlin gave him a bad push at the exit of turn 2 on a restart.
The 35th-place finish further displays a rather hot-and-cold season for the No. 20 team. When they’re hot, they finish in the top-5 or win outright; when they’re cold, they’re usually on the wrecker.
Given that last week was a superspeedway race, we decided that holding this result against Bell would be a tad unfair, but the Oklahoma native’s advantage at the top of our power rankings is growing thin.
2. Kyle Larson (Last Week: 3)
Last Three Races: 37st, 1st, 2nd
Tanner: Maybe, just maybe, Kyle Larson is starting to figure out this superspeedway-style racing.
His podium finish in Atlanta felt more like an outlier than anything else, but if you peel the results back to last fall, Larson scored his second-straight top-5 at the Alabama behemoth by nabbing a runner-up result last week.
While I’d argue that Larson’s results have little to do with how well he’s actually performed in these races, Larson’s results are starting to make the two JGR drivers that have dominated these rankings sweat a little.
3. Denny Hamlin (Last Week: 2)
Last Three Races: 1st, 2nd, 21st
Jey: Denny Hamlin was on the Toyota strategy this week in Talladega, which allowed the Toyotas to link up together at the front several times throughout the race.
On the final round of green-flag pit stops, this strategy would be undone after a late block by Ross Chastain almost triggered the Big One.
Thankfully, they were able to keep from wrecking, but this — combined with the team slightly underfueling the car — would force Hamlin to conserve fuel for the rest of the race, resulting in a mid-pack finish.
For now, he sits at third in our power rankings as the No. 11 team looks to rebound in Fort Worth. If the results of the last intermediate are anything to go by, we should expect Hamlin to compete for another trip to victory lane this weekend.
4. William Byron (Last Week: 5)
Last Three Races: 2nd, 6th, 3rd
Jey: William Byron and Rudy Fugle are starting to prove the doubters wrong. As we head into May, the Axalta team is as fast and consistent as ever, and there seems to be no “disappearing act” in sight like years past.
That’s great news for Byron fans and bad news for the field. If they can keep this up, they’ll be shoo-ins for a deep playoff run just like the last two years.
Byron sits in fourth after staying in line to notch a third-place finish this weekend at Talladega and looks to back that up by chasing another win at the track where he secured win number 300 for Mr. Hendrick back in the fall of 2023.
5. Ryan Blaney (Last Week: 4)
Last Three Races: 5th, 5th, 37th
Tanner: It might behoove Team Penske to stop running the Advance Auto Parts scheme at superspeedways because that car ends up getting hit in the right-rear quarter panel in put in the wall every single time.
A fourth DNF through 10 weeks is not a promising look for a title contender without a win, and I imagine it feels even worse for the No. 12 team that they had to see their teammate win a race that they were wholly capable of taking for themselves.
Much like Bell before him, it’s hard to put this result on the driver when he was a bystander that got wadded up in a crash, so he stays in the top-5 this week.
6. Alex Bowman (Last Week: 8)
Last Three Races: 35th, 37th, 7th
Tanner: If Bowman hadn’t popped out of line in the trioval coming to the finish line, he would’ve netted another top-5, but he drifted back to seventh over the final 1,000 feet of the race.
The performance was a solid rebound for the No. 48 crew as they’d struggled with mechanical gremlins the past few races before the break, so (theoretically) being in a position to win at Talladega look to provide a confidence boost for the team unable to survive Bristol and Darlington.
Much like the No. 12 team before them, the No. 48 team’s results don’t match up with their race pace, and I believe that once they put a race together, they’ll put themselves in the postseason.
7. Chase Elliott (Last Week: 9)
Last Three Races: 8th, 15th, 5th
Jey: Chase Elliott and the entire No. 9 Prime Video crew had what they needed in Alabama, which was a clean, consistent race with no issues.
Bringing home stage points in the first stage and finishing a very solid fifth makes for a great day in anyone’s book, especially in an unexpectedly carnage-free plate race.
Elliott moves up to seventh this week as he looks to defend his win from last year at Texas this coming weekend. A victory would solidify the efforts that both Elliott and his crew are making while quieting some of the noise around any possible internal friction.
8. Bubba Wallace (Last Week: 7)
Last Three Races: 21st, 19th, 8th
Jey: Bubba Wallace ran a fantastic race at Talladega, notching 16 stage points and a stage win to pair with his eighth-place finish despite the strategy of the Toyotas going sideways in the final stage.
Bubba drove from 20th into the top-10 in the final laps as those around him began to sputter for fuel or get impatient and duck out of line in failed efforts to move forward.
This lands Bubba at eighth on our power rankings for this week and should serve as a great momentum builder as we head to two of his better intermediates in the NextGen era over the next two weeks: Texas where he’s nearly won and Kansas where he claimed his most recent victory.
9. Tyler Reddick (Last Week: 6)
Last Three Races: 4th, 18th, 14th
Jey: Tyler Reddick has largely been M.I.A. since he nearly held on to win at Darlington. The Toyota strategy going awry didn’t help him, yet he was able to snag five stage points in the second stage this past weekend.
That said, this team needs to refocus and find more pace if they intend to compete into the summer and beyond.
Reddick slides to ninth on our rankings this week as the No. 45 team look to their teammates both in-house at 23XI and up the road at JGR to get back up to speed over the next several weeks.
10. Joey Logano (Last Week: Honorable Mention)
Last Three Races: 13th, 24th, 39th
Tanner: What appeared to be a fifth-place finish and great stage points for the defending champions turned into disaster post-race as the No. 22 was found to be missing a bolt in their spoiler, disqualifying them from the race and relegating them to last place.
It’s a shame because Logano ran a great race and won’t be rewarded for it, but at least he stayed in the headlines for his second-stage radio tirade against his teammate (and eventual winner) Austin Cindric.
Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe haven’t had anything go their way this season. That said, I won’t be counting out the Pennzoil-powered machine, even if it is an odd-numbered year.
Honorable Mentions: Carson Hocevar, Austin Cindric, Ryan Preece
(Top Photo Credit: Butch Dill/AP Photo)
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