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Power Rankings: Ryan Blaney riding pair of top 10s into Atlanta
By Pat DeCola | Tuesday, March 16, 2021
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after Phoenix Raceway and before Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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20. Ross Chastain (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 20
Season-low: Out
Comment: Apart from a crash at the Daytona Road Course that left him with a 39th-place finish, Chastain has averaged a finish of 16.5 in the other four races, which is borderline playoff material. His two Atlanta Cup starts came more than two years ago, and netted finishes of 30th and 31st.
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19. Ryan Preece (-2)
Season-high: 15
Season-low: Out
Comment: Preece's two top 10s to open the season are starting to feel distant, with an average finish of 20.67 since. In a pair of Atlanta starts to his name, he owns a best finish of 26th.
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18. Bubba Wallace (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 13
Season-low: Out
Comment: Wallace picked up his best finish of the season at Phoenix, flirting with the top 10 toward the end of the race before settling in 16th. He now heads to Atlanta, where he's bettered his finish in each race — 32nd to 27th to 21st last year.
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17. Chris Buescher (-1)
Season-high: 16
Season-low: Out
Comment: Buescher seemingly has settled around that mid-teen part of the pack, seeing his last four finishes range from 11th to 19th to 14th to 18th albeit with one brilliant stint at the front of the field at Miami. Perhaps he finds his way back into the top 10 at Atlanta, where he finished ninth in 2019.
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16. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (+2)
Season-high: 16
Season-low: Out
Comment: It's surprising Stenhouse hasn't landed a top 10 so far this year given how well he's run — and above expectations. His Atlanta story is honestly kind of similar. Six of the JTG-Daugherty driver's eight finishes there are better than 20th yet he has just one top 10 (2016).
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15. Alex Bowman (--)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 15
Comment: Bowman has been consistently inconsistent this year, but a 13th-place showing at Phoenix should be considered a net-positive after an early spin put his race in question. He's never finished in the top 10 at Atlanta, but all three of his Hendrick starts there were inside the top 20.
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14. Kyle Busch (-3)
Season-high: 6
Season-low: 14
Comment: And just like that, back to the doldrums for the No. 18 team. Busch will look to rebound from a 25th-place run at Phoenix this weekend at Atlanta, a track that has been very good to him (two wins, runner-up last year) over his Gibbs years.
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13. Austin Dillon (+1)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: 16
Comment: Dillon would likely be in the top 10 in points had his Daytona Road Course outing gone better, but he's still performed reasonably well overall. He's gotten close to the top 10 a couple of times at Atlanta before, including last year's 11th-place run.
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12. Michael McDowell (--)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: Out
Comment: McDowell finished outside the top 20 for the first time this season, but top 25s obviously won't hurt his case to finish inside the top 30 in points and make use of his provisional playoff berth. A rough Atlanta history faces him this weekend, though he did finish a career-best 24th in two of the last three races there.
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11. Kurt Busch (-1)
Season-high: 6
Season-low: 12
Comment: We're starting to see where teams are likely going to stack up this year, and Busch is looking like a driver who will hang around 8th to 10th and perhaps notch a win or two — no small feat for one of the sport's oldest drivers. Atlanta has been a good track for him over the past two decades, seeing a trio of wins there from 2002-10 and five straight top eights dating back to 2016.
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10. Ryan Blaney (+3)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 15
Comment: Two straight top 10s and a bunch of points in each? It seems things are trending the right way for Blaney and a mercurial No. 12 team, and they now head to a track where he finished fourth last year. His four previous starts to that, however, netted no top 10s.
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9. Christopher Bell (-1)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 16
Comment: Comparing how well Bell's first five races this year have gone compared to last year is almost laughable, and it's been nice to see one of NASCAR's hottest young talents become a factor again. He only has one Cup start at Atlanta (18th) but has two wins there in four starts across the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series.
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8. William Byron (+1)
Season-high: 8
Season-low: 18
Comment: Either Byron is finally coming into his own as a driver, Hendrick Motorsports has really hit on something this year or -- likely -- it's both. We'll see if he can roll to a fourth straight top 10 this weekend at Atlanta, where he has a best finish of 17th in three starts.
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7. Kevin Harvick (-2)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 7
Comment: Harvick returned to his top-five/six form on Sunday, but the Phoenix master was never really in the mix with the leaders for the race win, which is still a bit concerning for the No. 4 team. Another good opportunity awaits, however, as Atlanta has produced two wins in the past three years for the 2014 champ.
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6. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 6
Comment: Elliott returned to the top 10 for the first time since the Daytona 500, landing his second top five of the season. An Atlanta victory would be huge for the Georgia native, and with four top 10s in five starts, it's certainly in the cards.
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5. Kyle Larson (-2)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 14
Comment: Larson picked up his fourth top 10 of the season at Phoenix and might be running the best races of his career — a scary thought knowing we're only five races into his return. Runner-up at Atlanta in 2017, he could be looking at win No. 2 of 2021 on Sunday.
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4. Joey Logano (--)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 4
Comment: It really feels like there were times in each race so far this year when it looked like Logano would emerge victorious, but here he stands with zero wins. His Atlanta stats with Team Penske are better than they were when he was driving the No. 20 car and he should be in the mix once again this weekend.
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3. Martin Truex Jr. (+4)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 7
Comment: Truex cashed in on his first win of the season at Phoenix, and the No. 19 team continues to improve each week. Though winless at Atlanta, he's been quite strong there for the past decade, with eight finishes of eighth or better in his last nine.
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2. Brad Keselowski (--)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 7
Comment: Keselowski sure looks like Championship 4 material in the early going, and I only expect that notion to be further solidified this weekend. In his last six Atlanta showings, the No. 2 driver has a 5.2 average finish and two wins.
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1. Denny Hamlin (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 4
Comment: Hamlin has very nearly had a top 10 in every race this year (11th at Miami) and continues to run at the front of the field weekly. He won at Atlanta in 2012, but has just three top 10s since, though two have come in the last three races.
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