Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney won Stage 2 in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it was his best friend and 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace who captured his first crown jewel, taking the checkered flag in double OT at the Brickyard. As the defending winner at Iowa Speedway, will Blaney claim win No. 2 of 2025 this weekend?
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the Brickyard 400 at Indy and before Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Iowa (3:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: 2025 Cup Series schedule | Full Cup Series standings
Analysis: Elliott continued his remarkable 2025 consistency at Indy, once again landing inside the top 15 but struggling to get much else going, failing to lead a lap or collect any stage points as the Regular Season Championship battle tightens. He has looked strong in essentially every single Iowa race he’s run at the national series level and it feels extremely likely he’ll eventually crack through for a win there, perhaps as soon as Sunday.
Analysis: Hamlin had one of the more impressive runs of the weekend, taking a backup car (that he didn’t sound particularly excited about in pre-race comments) from the rear of the field to a third-place finish in his seemingly never-ending pursuit of a Brickyard 400 win. He’ll be making just a second career start at Iowa across every series, but there’s a good chance with how he’s running that he won’t have to wait so long for this corn jewel.
Analysis: Larson did everything he possibly could to go back-to-back at Indianapolis, but it was just Bubba Wallace’s day, ultimately. Still, things do seem to be trending back in the right direction for the 2021 champ, so look for him to collect at least one more regular-season win to solidify that — possibly at Iowa, where he was the inaugural Cup race pole sitter and led 80 laps last year.
Analysis: Byron was quite strong in both stages and still scored 36 points — three more than fourth-place finisher Ryan Preece — but he likely won’t be satisfied with his fifth finish outside the top 15 in the past six races. This is not the shape the No. 24 team wants to be in headed into the playoffs, but it’s running out of time to get it together before then. Perhaps it all clicks at Iowa, where Byron rode to a runner-up last summer.
Analysis: Bell scored a solid 29 points, but more encouraging was just the scrappy nature of battling back from a few issues and no stage points to settle into the top 10 by the time the checkered flag flew. Iowa is very much his kind of track and after dominating there in the lower series, plus turning in a top five last year in Cup (and with Richmond around the corner as well), it’s not a stretch to think he could still finish the regular season with the most wins.
Analysis: It’s kind of flown under the radar, but Blaney is having a bit of a down season and is averaging his worst finish (17.5) since his rookie season at Wood Brothers Racing (18.5). That said, all of that could be washed away this weekend after a strong run at Indy could propel last year’s Iowa winner to the forward momentum needed to get a deep playoff run going. After seeing his pal Bubba Wallace celebrate a Brickyard 400 win, he could have a little extra motivation in corn country.
Analysis: Reddick appeared to have a car that could contend for the win — and his teammate did win the race, after all — collecting stage points early but ultimately getting caught up in the post-weather-delay restart wreck ended his day for a second straight finish outside the top 10. His overall history at Iowa is pretty spotty, too, so there’s nothing close to a guarantee he stops the bleeding, but he has had some nice runs there in the past, so it’s possible.
Analysis: The Indiana boy can still say he led the Brickyard 400 to the green flag as its pole winner (and even tossed in a Stage 1 victory), but Briscoe’s search for a win at his home track, Indy, will have to wait another year. The Iowa Xfinity Series winner has picked things up lately in general, though, and should have a strong chance to be competitive at the short track.
Analysis: It’s looking like Bowman may have missed his best window of races to win his way into the playoffs, but is still doing everything in his power to point his way in, with a fifth top-11 finish in the last six races coming at Indy. He’s been competitive just about every trip he’s made to Iowa, too, so it’s unlikely he falls off this weekend. 
Analysis: Well, there you have it — the biggest win of Wallace’s career just opened up the playoff field tremendously, as the No. 23 has been fast all year; it was more a question of if it would be a playoff car, too. Don’t expect him to trail off this weekend, either — while Wallace has never won at Iowa, nearly all of his starts in Xfinity and Truck have gone for top 10s.
Analysis: Another new winner pushed Buescher closer to the playoff bubble, where he now firmly sits, despite a solid 31-point day at Indy. He still holds a decent 42-point margin, but that could shrink this weekend at Iowa, where Buescher has just one top 10 across five national series starts. Counterpoint? That lone top 10 was a win. 
Analysis: Chastain incurred his third crash-induced finish outside the top 30 in the past five races and has just a pair of top 10s since a huge win at Charlotte in May as a frustrating summer stretch continues for No. 1. The literal farmer would love to get it done at Iowa (and nearly did a couple of times in the Truck Series a ways back) but it’s hard to see it happening this weekend based on his recent trend. 
Analysis: The defending and three-time champion, having just five top 10s with just four races remaining in the regular season, certainly wasn’t on our bingo card, but here we are. Logano had a shot at the Indy win but was derailed by a flat tire before things unwound completely, leaving the No. 22 team scratching its head before we go to a track where Logano has just one career national series start.
Analysis: Not only did Preece land his best finish since Las Vegas, in March, his 12 laps out front at Indy were the most he’d had in a race since a week even earlier than that, at Phoenix. Preece is trending towards being a playoff driver, and the past winner at Iowa in the Xfinity Series could introduce himself to the Field of 16 this weekend. 
Analysis: Gibbs is $1 million richer after claiming the inaugural In-Season Challenge title, but he’s still got his eye on the prize of making the playoffs. A P21 at Indy didn’t help much, but Gibbs was lights out at Iowa in the ARCA Menards Series days, and some of that magic could translate to Cup with how he’s been running this summer.
Analysis: Indy halted a nice, little three-race run Busch had put together and, while he’s just two spots below the playoff bubble, that 81-point deficit looks pretty daunting with just four races remaining. Iowa was a frustrating one for him last year, but “Rowdy” does have a past win there in the Xfinity Series, so in theory, a win this weekend wouldn’t be the biggest shocker. It would be a surprise, though.
Analysis: Cindric has led 40-plus laps in five races this year as he begins to find the front of the field more consistently, but he has just two top 10s in those races, so he’ll need to work on his closing skills. Team Penske has long succeeded at Iowa across various series and, though last year didn’t go so well for him, Cindric could once again mix it up with the leaders on Sunday.
Analysis: Berry is still angling to find some solid footing before the playoffs, but lest we forget — he’s one of the less experienced Cup drivers, with just 70 starts under his belt and is still learning. He’ll take the solid weekends where he can get them and take lessons from the other ones, but Iowa should be a place he can show off his skills, and did last year with a seventh-place run. 
Analysis: You know, a top 20 in your first Brickyard 400 while you’re still adjusting to oval racing in general ain’t half bad. And now for something completely different — a short track out in the corn fields, where SVG crashed out of last year’s Xfinity Series event but did start on the front row.
Analysis: Nemechek wasn’t battling for the $1 million at Indy and it’s a darn shame, because he finished the highest out of the four semi-finalists but was eliminated from the competition earlier this month at Dover Motor Speedway. Still, the Iowa Truck Series winner is looking like a dark horse playoff candidate and could surprise a few people these last few weeks before the 16-driver grid is set.