Power Rankings: Kyle Larson could look like 2021 self again — very soon

By Pat DeCola | Wednesday, July 6, 2022

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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after the race at Road America and before Sunday's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, NBC Sports App, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio).

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20. Michael McDowell (Not ranked last week)

Season-high: 20

Season-low: Out

Comment: Welcome back, Mr. McDowell, to the Power Rankings for the first time since last year's playoffs — and he's earned it. Through just half the season he's already amassed two more top 10s than last year's breakout and is on pace for a career-best 16.6 average finish. That number is better than the 2022 figures put up by Kurt Busch, William Byron, Daniel Suárez and Tyler Reddick, and all of them have won. He's certainly in the mix as a dark horse playoff contender.

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19. Erik Jones (-2)

Season-high: 14

Season-low: Out

Comment: Jones has had a couple of decent runs lately (Gateway, Nashville) but overall has just one top 10 in the last seven races, which is not the consistency he's looking for as he scraps for a playoff spot. He has just one top 10 in seven Atlanta starts as well – in 2019, with a different team and on a different track configuration.

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18. Chase Briscoe (+2)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: 20

Comment: Briscoe is starting to show some signs of sparking up, but he's struggling to put together top 10s — just one since Martinsville — and his 18.1 average finish doesn't indicate if a long playoff run is likely. He led the field to green at Atlanta earlier this year, however, so perhaps he could have speed again this weekend.

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17. Aric Almirola (-3)

Season-high: 11

Season-low: Out

Comment: It's not looking so great for Almirola's playoff hopes at the moment, as Tyler Reddick's win means one fewer spot to be clinched on points. The No. 10 driver has proven to be able to win when he's in position to do so, he just hasn't been able to be in the mix at the end much this year with just five top 10s and no finishes better than fifth (twice).

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16. Kurt Busch (-3)

Season-high: 12

Season-low: Out

Comment: Busch truly is having an up-and-down year, perfectly illustrated by his past month and a half, going from a win at Kansas to a P23 at Road America with finishes of 31st, third, 18th and second in the four races in between. If the trend continues, he'll do well at Atlanta — and his P3 there earlier this year would seem to indicate that's exactly what'll happen.

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15. Austin Cindric (+1)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: 19

Comment: Cindric still has just five top 10s on the year, but you can really start to feel the shift coming for that No. 2 team as Team Penske sets itself up as a huge player in the second half of the year. Three of those top 10s came in the past three races and Cindric has scored 30 or more points in five of the last six.

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14. William Byron (-3)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 16

Comment: This year is so strange. There are 15 drivers with more top 10s than Byron's five, and yet he's one of just five drivers with multiple wins, his 570 laps led are most in the series and his 13 playoff points are tied for the lead as well. Despite some rough weeks lately, the winner of the spring Atlanta race should be feeling pretty good entering the weekend.

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13. Daniel Suárez (+2)

Season-high: 13

Season-low: Out

Comment: Another road course meant another fast car for Suárez as Trackhouse Racing continues to establish itself as a force on these types of tracks. Suárez picked up his second top five of the season earlier this year at Atlanta and should keep the ball rolling in Georgia this weekend.

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12. Tyler Reddick (+6)

Season-high: 7

Season-low: 20

Comment: Now that win No. 1 is out of the way, how far can Reddick take this thing? He's obviously championship material, going back-to-back in the Xfinity Series and he's shown to race at the front of the field plenty this year so it's possible he's a lot closer to title talk than his 17.3 average finish would indicate. For now, how about shifting the focus to putting two good weeks together — he doesn't have back-to-back top 10s since Vegas/Phoenix.

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11. Alex Bowman (+1)

Season-high: 5

Season-low: 13

Comment: The good: Bowman has nine top 10s. The bad: none of them came in June or July. No. 48 appears to have hit a bit of a cold streak, but perhaps he rights the ship this weekend at Atlanta where one of the nine came earlier this year.

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10. Christopher Bell (--)

Season-high: 10

Season-low: Out

Comment: Bell was on a roll there for a bit but has started to skid as Toyota as a whole looks a little shaky at the moment. This might not be the weekend where they get things going, either, but expect them to be a force down the road a bit at New Hampshire.

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9. Denny Hamlin (-2)

Season-high: 4

Season-low: 20

Comment: After a Coca-Cola 600 win, it sure looked like Hamlin was back to being himself and ... he has promptly averaged a 22.0 finish in the four races since. He still has just four top 10s on the year with only 10 lead-lap-finishes and maybe there are still some reasons to be concerned about his title hopes here.

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8. Kevin Harvick (+1)

Season-high: 5

Season-low: 14

Comment: The 2014 champ has seven top 10s in the last nine races, and his 13.1 average finish ranks fourth in the series — Harvick is one of a lucky few to find some consistency this year, even if he isn't winning yet. He long ruled at Atlanta and even though that didn't transfer over in the spring race on the new layout you've gotta think it's only a matter of time.

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7. Martin Truex Jr. (+1)

Season-high: 4

Season-low: 10

Comment: Truex has just two top 10s in the past eight races, which is something not often said about the steady, consistent 2017 champ. He also has just two top fives, but has still shown to be able to find the front of the field with 254 laps led.

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6. Kyle Busch (-2)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 11

Comment: Busch put together three straight top-three finishes from Kansas to Gateway ... which he followed with three straight finishes outside the top 20 the past three races. Still, his 11 top 10s are third most in the series while he's the only driver with 16 lead-lap finishes. You have to like his long-term 2022 prospects.

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5. Joey Logano (--)

Season-high: 2

Season-low: 9

Comment: If it weren't for a pair of wins sprinkled in, you'd think Logano's second quarter of the season was a rough one. He has just three top 10s over the last nine races, two of which were victories at Darlington and Gateway. He's led in six of the nine, though, so it appears likely more wins still lie ahead.

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4. Kyle Larson (+2)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 6

Comment: As several star drivers struggle to gain solid footing and locate consistency, Larson appears to have found it and could start to really look like his 2021 self sooner than later. It could even be this weekend. Even though it was a different track configuration, Larson absolutely dominated at Atlanta in the spring last year but wound up second and it's hard to see him forgetting about that one until he wins there.

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3. Ryan Blaney (--)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 10

Comment: Blaney's P11 at Road America ended a three-race stint of top-six finishes, though he scored more points (36) than his P6 at Sonoma (32). A winner at Atlanta last year and a top-five finisher in this race in 2021 combined with his '22 speed make us think this might be the weekend he breaks through.

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2. Ross Chastain (--)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: Out

Comment: Honestly, at this point if we were to travel to the future and see that Chastain missed the Championship 4, we would wonder what went wrong. He's just a fixture at the front of the field in every race at the moment, and his nine top fives are most in the series. He had a runner-up at Atlanta earlier this year and should be a threat to win his third race on Sunday.

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1. Chase Elliott (--)

Season-high: 1

Season-low: 4

Comment: Apart from a three-race skid that preceded his current hot streak, Elliott has been near-exceptional almost the entirety of the rest of the season and he fittingly became the odds-on title favorite after Road America. We all know what an Atlanta win would mean to the Georgia native and Sunday marks as good a chance as any for the 2020 champ.

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