Power Rankings: Will Buescher’s big breakthrough arrive at Daytona?
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NASCAR.com's Zack Albert subs in for Pat DeCola this week to rank the top 20 Cup Series drivers after Tyler Reddick's win at Michigan International Speedway and before Saturday night's race at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).
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20. Carson Hocevar (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 20
Season-low: Out
Comment: Hocevar makes his first appearance in the rankings since early June, riding solid momentum on his side with finishes of 12th (Indy), eighth (Richmond) and 10th on Monday in his home state of Michigan. Unlike the other two drivers -- Josh Berry and Zane Smith -- in the 2024 Sunoco Rookie of the Year class, Hocevar is still looking for his first top-five finish in Cup, but the 21-year-old tops them both in the current series standings.
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19. Austin Cindric (--)
Season-high: 16
Season-low: Out
Comment: Cindric never quite recovered from a Lap 81 wall scrape at Michigan, but even with a 29th-place result, the misfortune of others helped him actually gain one spot in the overall standings. The Olympic break has been a dividing line for the Team Penske driver -- he posted five consecutive finishes on the good side of the top 20 heading into the two-week hiatus; in the two races since the series resumed, he's placed 24th and 28th.
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18. Chase Briscoe (-1)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: Out
Comment: Briscoe's runner-up finish at New Hampshire nearly two months ago still stands as his season's high-water mark, but that's as close as he's been to Victory Lane in the races before or since. His involvement in a multicar crash at the end of Stage 2 kept him from making another serious bid, and he's gone the last six races with a best finish of 15th in that span.
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17. Kyle Busch (+1)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 20
Comment: It's far too early to mark Michigan down as a turnaround point for Busch and the No. 8 team's ever-changing tides. Still, a performance bump and solid strategy swings provided Busch with his first top-five finish since April, when he finished fourth from the pole at Dover Motor Speedway 13 races ago.
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16. Joey Logano (--)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 20
Comment: A pair of incidents -- a flat tire and an unfortunate seat for a Stage 2 pileup -- were the No. 22 driver's undoing at a track where he's won three times in the Cup Series. Logano long-ago sealed his spot in the playoffs, but two DNFs in the last three races are harsh results for the momentum meter.
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15. Ross Chastain (-3)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 15
Comment: The opportunity to end up as Michigan's big playoff gainer fizzled in an overtime jam-up and spin for the No. 1 Chevrolet. Chastain's postseason bid still remains in limbo, and he's provisionally the last driver in by a single point, but four finishes outside the top 20 in the last six races have dropped him from ninth to 13th in the standings, souring his springtime surge. He contended late in his last time out at Daytona, where a victory in his home state this weekend would soothe that recent slide.
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14. Daniel Suárez (+1)
Season-high: 12
Season-low: Out
Comment: Suárez's signing of a contract extention with Trackhouse Racing nearly two weeks ago came with the hope that performance goals could be reached. Michigan meant the latest step in what's been a modest turnaround of late with three consecutive top-10 results for the No. 99 team.
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13. Chris Buescher (+1)
Season-high: 9
Season-low: 16
Comment: Buescher and his RFK Racing team salvaged a sixth-place outcome from what teetered on disaster when the No. 17 Ford was entrapped in a midrace tangle at Michigan. Repairs, a rebound and a strategy gamble saved the day, giving him a bit of a points breather (+16) on the playoff bubble. Buescher's longtime stance, though, is that he's not in it for the points, and Daytona looms with his name as the defending race winner for Saturday's Coke Zero Sugar 400.
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12. Bubba Wallace (-1)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 19
Comment: Wallace showed plenty of early speed at Michigan but did not have the results after Kyle Larson's spin in front of him touched off a pileup that his No. 23 Toyota was in the thick of. The mishap halted a short streak of two straight top fives, but Wallace enters Daytona as one of the perennial favorites at the drafting discipline. He's currently one point outside the playoff window.
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11. Ty Gibbs (+2)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 15
Comment: A steady day at Michigan helped the No. 54 driver snap a three-race streak of finishes outside the top 20. Interestingly, it was Gibbs' fourth third-place finish of the season, and the 21-year-old keeps inching toward what feels like an inevitable first Cup Series win.
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10. Alex Bowman (--)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 18
Comment: The No. 48 Chevy escaped Michigan with scrapes, and a third consecutive finish outside the top 25 was a stinging result. Bowman heads to Daytona, where his recent results have been positive. He's earned the most points of any Cup Series driver in the last three Daytona events, with an average finish of 4.3 in that span that includes a runner-up spot in this year's Daytona 500.
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9. Martin Truex Jr. (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 10
Comment: A wall scrape near the end of Sunday's Michigan race kept MTJ from registering his first top-five finish since early May at Kansas. Five of his last six starts have ended up with finishes outside the top 20, and Daytona -- where he's 0-for-38 in his Cup career -- is next. A Darlington win in the regular-season finale in two weeks may be the better bet; he's a two-time Cup winner there with 914 laps led.
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8. Brad Keselowski (--)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 18
Comment: Keselowski mustered fifth place in his quest for a home-state win at Michigan, and the result marked his first top five since Nashville -- five races ago. At Daytona this weekend, he'll be aiming for his first win at the 2.5-mile track since 2016, and he returns to the site of RFK Racing's 1-2 finish last summer, when he followed teammate Chris Buescher to the checkered flag.
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7. Christopher Bell (-1)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 15
Comment: Bell's stature as a three-time winner this season keeps him on the high side in this week's rankings. He has led 720 laps this season -- second only to Denny Hamlin (896) and Kyle Larson (820) -- but has crashed out of three of the last six Cup Series races. Bell was third his last time out at Daytona. His next Cup Series victory will mark a modest milestone -- No. 10.
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6. William Byron (+1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 8
Comment: Byron's scorching start -- three wins in the first eight races of 2024 -- might feel like a distant streak, but a runner-up day at Michigan put the No. 24 Chevy team back in the right neighborhood. Byron enters Daytona as its most recent winner with a chance to complete a season sweep of the track's two events. He'd be the first to do it since former Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson went back-to-back in 2013.
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5. Ryan Blaney (--)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 12
Comment: An 18th-place finish after an overtime brush with Chase Elliott put the No. 12 driver back in the finishing order at Michigan. The defending Cup Series champion has crashed out of his last two Daytona starts, but he's led laps in five of his most recent six outings. Expect him to contend again for his first win in Daytona's 400-miler since 2021.
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4. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 17
Comment: Elliott led 29 laps before settling for 15th at Michigan, but he eased up one spot to second in the Cup Series standings as the Regular Season Championship hunt comes down to its final two races. He's just 10 points off the lead with a pair of challenging tracks -- Daytona and Darlington -- to go.
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3. Denny Hamlin (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 9
Comment: Hamlin has led double-digit laps in five of the last seven races and made front-row starts in four of the last six. A solo spin at Michigan thwarted his day there, but the No. 11 team still recovered for a solid top-10 result. Hamlin's brilliance at Daytona has yielded three 500 wins; he's still looking for his first triumph in the summer 400-miler.
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2. Kyle Larson (-1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 5
Comment: A rare Michigan misstep and his fourth DNF of the season sent Larson tumbling from the points lead in an event where he led the most laps (41). The next two races to close out the regular season are a mixed bag for Larson. He's still looking for his first top five in 20 Daytona starts, but his Darlington record -- an 11.3 average finish, plus status as the defending Southern 500 winner -- stands out.
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1. Tyler Reddick (+1)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 14
Comment: No driver has had more summertime heat than Reddick, and top-six finishes in his last seven races make him the new leader here and in the overall Cup Series standings. He's now in the driver's seat for the Regular Season Championship and enters Daytona as the most recent winner on a drafting speedway (Talladega, April). He's also expected to be a prime contender in the regular-season finale at Darlington, where he was the runner-up in last year's Southern 500.