Power Rankings: Plenty of title fight left in dark horse Keselowski, No. 2 team

NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the 2021 NASCAR Playoffs drivers after the Round of 12 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and before the Round of 12 middle race at Talladega Superspeedway.

12. Christopher Bell (--)

Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Bell and the 20 team can't seem to catch a break for close to two months now, and the light is dwindling on his championship hopes. JGR cars tend to do well in the Talladega fall race, which will be welcomed by Bell — he has a 28.3 average finish there across three starts.

11. Alex Bowman (-3)

Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: Bowman's pace for these playoffs thus far is significantly off where he was during an underrated postseason run last year. He's certainly not out of it, though, with a strong Hendrick track this weekend at Talladega and another good one for him at the Roval a week later. He has runner-up finishes at both.

10. William Byron (-3)

Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: Byron continues to have a fast car most weekends, but circumstances have tended to be his foe rather than his friend in several recent races, including Vegas. He was the runner-up at Talladega in the spring and has led at least a lap in six of his seven starts there so perhaps everything clicks for him this weekend.

9. Brad Keselowski (+2)

Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Amid a late-summer lull and the announcement he was leaving Team Penske after a decade-plus tenure, it was fair to assume this team wouldn't be considered among the title favorites entering the postseason. Keselowski continues to turn in the kind of finishes that could propel him along these playoffs, however, and now heads to a track where he's tied for second in all-time wins with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. He ain't done yet.

8. Joey Logano (+1)

Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 11th
Comment: Logano thus far has a strong 8.75 average finish in the playoffs and still hasn't quite made his mark on this year's postseason — something I'm not sure we'll be able to say a few weeks from now. With three wins at Talladega from 2015-18 he's shown to be dominant there before. Could happen again this weekend.

7. Kevin Harvick (-1)

Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 12th
Comment: That's four straight top 10s now for Harvick, who last did that from Talladega to Dover in the spring. Still plenty of work to do and it'll be interesting to see how aggressively he approaches the Alabama track on Sunday. He's still below the cutline but survival might be key.

6. Ryan Blaney (-2)

Season-high: 4th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Until proven otherwise, Blaney and the 12 group remain Team Penske's best shot at a 2021 title, as evidenced by his two wins and sterling 6.43 average finish the past seven races. With a Talladega win in each 2019 and '20, there's no reason to think he won't be a factor Sunday.

5. Kyle Busch (+5)

Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 14th
Comment: It's funny how the playoffs work. Three of Busch's last five finishes were outside the top 20 and yet with a good Round of 12 start (third at Vegas) he's now third in points and in perhaps the best shape he's been in all year. Everything really hinges on avoiding chaos the next two weekends, though, and he has just eight top 10s in 32 'Dega starts and none in three Roval races.

4. Chase Elliott (+1)

Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Elliott is looking like a strong bet to be able to defend his title at Phoenix, netting another runner-up on Sunday — his sixth of the season. His lone Talladega win came in a spring race, but he finished fifth in this race last year and has led multiple laps in each of the last five races there.

3. Martin Truex Jr. (--)

Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 10th
Comment: Truex is heating up in a big way and should have a shot at the win in most of the remaining races — but more than likely not this weekend. The well-rounded driver just hasn't ever taken to superspeedway racing, and he hasn't seen a top 20 at Talladega since 2016.

2. Kyle Larson (-1)

Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Larson is a perfect 4-for-4 in top 10s to open the playoffs, and certainly had another car capable of winning on Sunday at Vegas. Talladega has been a different story for him, historically — he's only seen the top 10 twice in 13 starts and not since 2016.

1. Denny Hamlin (+1)

Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: And it's been done — Hamlin marks the first driver not named Kyle Larson to ascend to No. 1 since pre-COTA, and with good reason. The JGR driver appears to be the top overall title contender at the moment with the rest of the playoffs shaping up tremendously well for him, including this weekend at Talladega where he enters as the defending race winner.