Power Rankings: Can Bowman complete sweep of Hendrick ’24 winners?
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 NASCAR Cup Series drivers after Tyler Reddick's win at Talladega Superspeedway and before Sunday's race at Dover Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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20. Carson Hocevar (--)
Season-high: 20
Season-low: Out
Comment: Hocevar continues to look more than capable out there, and the rookie just strung together three straight 20-plus-point races for the first time in his career. His lone Dover start came in the Truck Series in 2020 (finished 12th), so the upcoming weekend at one of NASCAR's most challenging tracks could be difficult for him, but he's surprised so far.
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19. Austin Cindric (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 18
Season-low: Out
Comment: Cindric picked up another stage win to help buffer an eventual 23rd-place finish for his best points day since Atlanta (where he's tallied his lone top 10 this season), but that's now four straight finishes of 23rd or worse. Nothing exceptional from his first two Cup starts at Dover, but he had a fairly good handle on the "Monster Mile" in the Xfinity Series, with a sterling 4.6 average finish across seven starts and winning his most recent one.
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18. Kyle Busch (-1)
Season-high: 3
Season-low: 18
Comment: What a difference a year makes -- at this exact point last season, Busch was coming off his second win (with a runner-up at COTA, as well) and riding high in his first few months at RCR. Another win followed not long after at Gateway, but it's been tough sledding since then as No. 8 is on pace for his worst average finish since a pedestrian, one-win 2014 season. He's had some success at Dover in the past (three wins) and rolls in as the defending pole winner, but it's tough to say he'll have that kind of speed this weekend.
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17. Daniel Suárez (-1)
Season-high: 12
Season-low: Out
Comment: Busch and Suárez finished side-by-side at a drafting-style race once again, but it wasn't quite like at Atlanta this time. Instead, it was for 27th and 26th, respectively. Dover has been a difficult track for him lately, but No. 99 actually had a good bit of success early on in his career there via top 10s in his first four races, so perhaps he rebounds on Sunday.
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16. Chris Buescher (-2)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: 16
Comment: Buescher's points standing has remained relatively consistent, but his finishes have gotten worse or stayed the same every week since a runner-up result at Phoenix in early March. His Dover results have gone the opposite way lately, with no top 10s in his first 11 starts there but two straight in the most recent pair.
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15. Joey Logano (--)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 20
Comment: Logano has led double-digit laps in the past three races -- and won a stage at 'Dega -- but overall is still on pace for the worst average finish (17.4) of his Team Penske career. It might not be a turnaround weekend ahead for him, either -- he's led more laps the past three weeks than he has in his 27 starts at Dover (41 total).
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14. Bubba Wallace (-4)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 19
Comment: Talladega giveth and Talladega taketh away as the former Alabama winner walked out of the track with one point scored and the result not of his doing. No. 23 turned in his three best Dover finishes the three most recent trips there -- but overall still has yet to finish in the top 10 there, so it could be a bit of a skid here for Wallace.
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13. Alex Bowman (+5)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 18
Comment: Definitely still looking for more laps led here, but Bowman seems to be stringing together some consistency with now three top fives in the last six races ... and all at very different tracks (Bristol, COTA, 'Dega). The 2021 Dover winner -- though he missed last year's race with injury -- has been quite strong there lately, with five top fives in his last six starts in Delaware. He could make it a clean sweep for winning Hendrick Motorsports drivers in 2024.
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12. Christopher Bell (-4)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 12
Comment: Bell has had a fair bit of bad luck to start the season, and if he didn't have the win in his back pocket, that 17.9 average finish -- on pace to be by far his worst with Joe Gibbs Racing -- would be a lot more glaring. No major concerns here, though, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see him win this weekend at Dover, where he's averaged a 5.0 finish the past two races.
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11. Chase Briscoe (--)
Season-high: 11
Season-low: Out
Comment: Briscoe continues to make it to the end at Talladega, and he'll eventually win one if he keeps doing that. But overall, he's been quite good for almost two months with an 11.6 average finish over the past seven races. Two of his three Dover finishes netted results of 30th or worse, however, so it could be a nice test of where he's at this weekend.
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10. Brad Keselowski (+3)
Season-high: 10
Season-low: 18
Comment: Keselowski would obviously rather finish second than 22nd, but back-to-back runner-ups while on a notably long winless streak has to sting a bit. All told, he's clearly right there, and it's only a matter of time before he breaks back through. The 2012 champ has a long history of really solid Dover runs (12.9 average finish over 25 starts) but has just one win there that came during his run to the title.
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9. Ty Gibbs (--)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 9
Comment: It very much did not happen, but Gibbs was in a decent position to potentially win in the closing laps and that's sort of all you can ask for at Talladega. He turned in a P13 in his first Dover start last year and landed in the top five in his pair of Xfinity Series starts there so it could be a strong weekend ahead based on what we've seen out of him this year.
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8. Ross Chastain (+4)
Season-high: 5
Season-low: 14
Comment: Chastain sneaks back into the top 10 in points despite not having any top 10s on the results sheet since COTA. The speed is clearly there, however, and he's still picking up points -- something he's very likely to do again this weekend at Dover, where he's turned in finishes of second and third the past two years with 184 total laps led.
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7. Ryan Blaney (--)
Season-high: 2
Season-low: 7
Comment: Ford as a whole remains winless since his Martinsville victory last fall, so the concerns extend past just him, but it's starting to feel a little notable that Blaney has just one top 10 since this year's Phoenix race. Dover's been a tough track for the reigning champ historically (no wins, 18.2 average finish) but finally picked up his first top five there (a P3) last year.
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6. Denny Hamlin (-3)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 9
Comment: Hamlin's 2024 season is shaping up as an remarkably interesting one -- he's finished outside the top 30 in back-to-back races, has just three top 10s and ... has led multiple laps in every race so far for 399 total (not to mention his two wins). He's led laps in bunches at Dover lately as well and finally turned in his first win there in 2020; another one could be on tap.
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5. Martin Truex Jr. (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 10
Comment: Truex is tied for the series lead in average finish with William Byron, who has three wins to Truex's zero. That could change, and at the very least, his average should hit single digits this weekend at Dover, where the northeast native is the defending winner and has two wins and three runner-ups in the last seven races.
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4. Chase Elliott (--)
Season-high: 4
Season-low: 17
Comment: No back-to-back wins for Elliott, but in a season full of chaos so far, it's worth mentioning that the 2020 champ extended his hot start to the year in which he's yet to finish outside the top 20. The scary part is that he might not even be heated up yet and could still turn up the temp this weekend -- Elliott has two wins and a 9.8 average finish in 13 "Monster Mile" starts.
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3. Tyler Reddick (+3)
Season-high: 6
Season-low: 14
Comment: With how fast Reddick has looked all season, everybody knew it was just a matter of time before he took a checkered flag -- Talladega was a bit of a surprise, however. No. 45 has yet to lead a lap at Dover, but overall, it's been a decent track for him. He has a pair of top-eight finishes there in the past three races.
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2. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 5
Comment: The No. 5 team has had an all-around not-so-great couple of weeks -- he's finished 21st in his last two races -- yet he's retained the points lead. He'll probably be the driver to beat this weekend, too -- No. 5 has nearly 900 laps led at Dover and a pristine 8.6 average finish in 15 starts.
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1. William Byron (--)
Season-high: 1
Season-low: 7
Comment: The three-time 2024 winner hasn't finished worse than seventh the past five weeks, and he's trending up toward re-claiming the points lead, which he somehow hasn't held since Daytona. He's finished fourth in three of the past four Dover races, leading a race-high 193 laps in this race last year. The chances are quite good he adds a fourth '24 win this weekend.