Power Rankings: No better track than Dover for Chase Elliott to break into win column
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the 20 hottest Cup Series drivers after the race at Talladega Superspeedway and before Sunday's race at Dover Motor Speedway (1 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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20. Bubba Wallace (Not ranked last week )
Season-high: 16
Season-low: Out
Comment: Wallace's 35 laps led at 'Dega were second most, but unfortunately he'll walk away with fewer than half that many points (16) after wrecking out at the end. Overall, though it was a strong weekend for the No. 23, and he'll look to land his first-ever top 10 at Dover this weekend in his ninth try.
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19. Austin Cindric (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: Out
Comment: Talladega wasn't a banner race for Cindric, but luckily for him it wasn't for the the guys around him in the standings, either. The former Dover Xfinity Series winner will aim to, at the very least, finish his second career Dover Cup start after falling out due to the damaged vehicle policy last year.
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18. Daniel Suarez (--)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 19
Comment: Not typically known as a superspeedway ace, Suárez added his second top 10 at one this year after a P7 at Daytona earlier this season, and Talladega's ninth-place finish was exceptionally well-timed. It snapped a six-race streak outside the top 10 for Suárez, who conveniently now heads to arguably his best track (13.3 average finish) with some momentum.
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17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-5)
Season-high: 12
Season-low: Out
Comment: The reigning Daytona 500 champ has been held out of the top 10 at superspeedways since because, well, that's how these things sometimes go. He'll get over it quickly, with an eye likely already on this weekend -- he's the defending Dover runner-up.
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16. Chris Buescher (+1)
Season-high: 15
Season-low: Out
Comment: Buescher typically excels on superspeedways, so it was puzzling to see him as a non-factor in the thick of the pack for most of the race ... but come the checkered flag there he was, in third place. Last year's Dover pole starter led 18 laps en route to his first-ever top 10 there, so another good weekend could be in store.
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15. Chase Elliott (+1)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: Out
Comment: Narrowly missing out on his second straight top 10, it might be for the best Elliott didn't win Sunday because Talladega would've erupted into pure chaos if he scored the victory in his second race after returning from injury. Notably, he still picked up more points than anybody else despite the finish. As the defending Dover winner -- a track where he has nine top fives in 10 starts -- this might be the weekend it happens.
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14. Chase Briscoe (--)
Season-high: 14
Season-low: Out
Comment: That said, the other Chase is tearing it up at the moment, with his three straight top fives marking half the amount he'd collected in his career before this season. Dover will be a test for him, with an average finish of 24.0 there and no top 10s in his first two attempts.
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13. Brad Keselowski (+2)
Season-high: 9
Season-low: Out
Comment: It's not much, but after just six total top 10s in 2022, Keselowski has three in the past six races, and the improvement is significant and noticeable. The 2012 Dover fall race winner has often excelled there (13.1 average finish), though many of his strong races came in his early Team Penske days.
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12. William Byron (+1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 14
Comment: Sunday was a strong day for Byron, who notched his most points and first top 10 since COTA. Hendrick typically excels at Dover, and Byron himself has two top fives in the past three races there.
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11. Denny Hamlin (-2)
Season-high: 6
Season-low: 12
Comment: Hamlin's lack of major success on superspeedways in the Next Gen era continued on Sunday, as the two-time 'Dega winner landed 17th. Perhaps he can turn it around at Dover, where he won in 2020 and has led multiple laps in four of the past five races for a total of 402 circuits out front.
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10. Alex Bowman (+1)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 15
Comment: Like Elliott, Bowman didn't land in the top 10 (P13) but came away with a solid day after leading eight laps and finishing Stage 1 right behind his teammate. He was somewhat dominant in this race in 2021 for his first Dover win and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him do it again.
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9. Martin Truex Jr. (-5)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 14
Comment: Truex Jr. and superspeedways often don't mix, and Sunday resulted in the 2017 champ's worst result of the season a week after his best. Thankfully for him, he now heads to his home-iest of home tracks at Dover where, before his last two finishes there outside the top 10, he finished first or second for four straight races.
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8. Ryan Blaney (+2)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 13
Comment: We tossed it out last week that Blaney's streak might finally end at Talladega ... and it nearly did, coming up just short in second after leading a race-high 47 laps. He's still having a good season, but the winless streak remains on the wrong side of 50.
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7. Joey Logano (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 9
Comment: Despite the win it's been a bit of a slog so far for Logano, who is on pace for his worst average finish in a Team Penske car. He's long wanted to figure out Dover, a track he has a good average finish at (13.8 average finish) but is missing something to get that little extra (no wins, just 41 laps led in 26 starts).
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6. Tyler Reddick (--)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 15
Comment: After looking like he was headed toward title favorite status, Reddick has cooled slightly the past two weeks, with finishes of 22nd and 16th. He landed his first Dover top 10 in 2021, but it's otherwise been a struggle for him (13th, 18th, 30th).
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5. Kevin Harvick (--)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 11
Comment: The past two races marked the first time Harvick led multiple (not to mention double-digit) laps in back-to-back races this year, so naturally neither finish landed him inside the top 20. He's very likely to get back to looking like a title contender this weekend, as the 2020 Dover fall winner and owner of eight straight top 10s there.
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4. Ross Chastain (-1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 7
Comment: Chastain has led a good amount lately, including in three of the past four races, but he's averaged a 21.33 finish the past three weeks. He was a contender in last year's Dover race, though, with 86 laps led and a P3 finish, so he could get it going again this weekend.
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3. Kyle Larson (-2)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 11
Comment: Larson is another super strong driver that tends to not get the finishes to show that at superspeedways, and we saw that again on Sunday after getting wrecked out, landing him now with two finishes outside the top 30 -- but also two wins -- in his last four races. He's been the man to beat at Dover lately to a degree, and he should be strong again on Sunday.
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2. Christopher Bell (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 10
Comment: As has been the case for most of the season so far, Bell was the top finishing Toyota on Sunday as he turned in his series-leading seventh top 10. He finally picked up his first top 20 at Dover last year -- and it was a fourth-place finish.
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1. Kyle Busch (+7)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 8
Comment: I mean, what can you say -- how many times can one man prove the doubters wrong? Busch single-handedly has more wins than Joe Gibbs Racing combined this year and his resurgence right out of the gate is something to behold. He now gets to head to a track where he's been dominant at times -- some of which was during a period when Jimmie Johnson was untouchable there, so that's saying something -- and two in a row is very much on the table.