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Power Rankings: Denny Hamlin returning to early-season form?
By Pat DeCola | Tuesday, July 6, 2021
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NASCAR.com's Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series drivers after the return to Road America and before race two of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (--)
Season-high: 12th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Stenhouse remains on the hunt for his first career road-course top 10, but he'll gladly exit Road America with a respectable 12th-place run. He only has one in nine tries at Atlanta as well, but he hasn't' finished worse than 18th there since 2015 and it's his second-best track in terms of average finish among venues with more than two starts.
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19. Matt DiBenedetto (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 14th
Season-low: Out
Comment: DiBenedetto notched his first top 10 since Kansas and it couldn't have come at a more crucial time. He's still fighting hard for a playoff spot — and a job next year — but has his work cut out for him this weekend at Atlanta, where he's yet to land a top 10.
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18. Ross Chastain (Not ranked last week)
Season-high: 18th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Chastain is quickly entering the conversation of road-course studs, having compiled a top 10 in all three left-and-right-turn-races since the Daytona Road Course in February. Atlanta, to his dismay, only includes left-hand turns, though he did place a decent 14th there in the spring in a car that wasn't performing as well as it is now.
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17. Michael McDowell (-1)
Season-high: 10th
Season-low: Out
Comment: McDowell knows he had a rather large missed opportunity to further bolster his playoff positioning at Road America, faltering to his worst finish since Martinsville after showing road-course strength in the previous 2021 races. Though he's never finished top 10 at Atlanta, he did notch his first-career top 20 there earlier this year.
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16 Chris Buescher (+1)
Season-high: 13th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Buescher has now finished 20th, 19th and 18th in the last three races, respectively. Logic would say he's due to finish 17th at Atlanta, but that would be a disappointment for him — he earned his first top 10 of the season there earlier this year (seventh).
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15. Christopher Bell (--)
Season-high: 8th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: He'd probably still say his win in February felt better, but Bell's runner-up on Sunday — just his second top five since that win — had to feel good after a rough few months. He dominated at Atlanta in the Xfinity Series in 2019 and a win this weekend would not come as a surprise as he's clearly starting to heat up.
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14. Kurt Busch (--)
Season-high: 6th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Busch has seemingly found something since bottoming out at Charlotte (38th), with four top eights in five races since. Atlanta earlier this season actually marked his worst finish of the campaign (39th) but stands as one of his best tracks overall, with a string of solid finishes there prior and three total wins.
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13. Austin Dillon (-1)
Season-high: 11th
Season-low: 16th
Comment: Dillon continues to improve upon a 2021 average finish that is easily a career-best and now stands at 13.3. He has an average finish of 8.5 in the last two Atlanta races, so he could add a seventh top 10 of the season this weekend.
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12. Tyler Reddick (+1)
Season-high: 12th
Season-low: Out
Comment: Reddick appears to be a borderline top-10 driver at the moment, and I have a sneaking suspicion he could make some noise in the second half of the season. He'll try to keep it rolling at Atlanta, where he has averaged a finish of 21.0 in two races so far.
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11. Ryan Blaney (--)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 15th
Comment: Road America snapped a two-race top-six streak for Blaney, who is now in search of a new crew chief for 2022 as well. He and Todd Gordon have a shot at another win together this weekend, seeing as they picked one up at the Georgia track a few short months ago.
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10. Kevin Harvick (-2)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 11th
Comment: Harvick had started to put things together with a three-race run inside the top eight before faltering at Road America and finishing 27th. His stint outside the front of the pack should be short-lived, as one of the strongest active drivers at Atlanta (two wins in last four races.)
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9. Brad Keselowski (--)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 12th
Comment: Keselowski has had a few decent weeks, with an 8.67 average finish the past three races but overall hasn't made too much noise since his Talladega win. That could change this weekend, as the 2012 champ has won two of the past five Atlanta races.
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8. Martin Truex Jr. (+2)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 10th
Comment: The days of Truex and Elliott being the drivers to beat on road courses appear to be behind us (for now), at least in terms of the No. 19. The 2017 champ is still pretty darn good, though, on ovals like Atlanta. He has seven straight top 10s and nine in his last 10 there.
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7. Joey Logano (-1)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 8th
Comment: Logano is still amidst one of his best seasons to date overall but is beginning to slip a little bit ahead of a track he typically hasn't excelled at. Though he's been much better at Atlanta in Penske equipment than his Gibbs foray, the 2018 champ owns just five top 10s in 15 tries there.
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6. Alex Bowman (-1)
Season-high: 5th
Season-low: 17th
Comment: Bowman wasn't quite in contention for the win but was close to a top-five run before his brakes failed and he clipped his teammate near the end to land in 22nd. Given how good the No. 48 has looked lately and his third-place result at Atlanta earlier this season, he could be in the mix for the win this weekend.
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5. William Byron (-2)
Season-high: 3rd
Season-low: 18th
Comment: A difficult result at Road America (33rd) is quelled somewhat by a pole run and obvious speed in the No. 24 at the moment. He earned a top 10 at Atlanta earlier this season during his prolific top-10 streak and it'd be a surprise to see him finish outside of it this weekend.
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4. Denny Hamlin (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 6th
Comment: It's becoming easy to forget, because he's winless, that Hamlin has been one of the season's best drivers, but the Gibbs mainstay is enjoying a career year in many statistical categories. A breakthrough is coming at some point, and with three top fives in his last four Atlanta races it could be Sunday.
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3. Chase Elliott (+4)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 10th
Comment: The title defense certainly has not been what Elliott had pictured, but it's starting to really kick into gear and could really start to get rolling as the playoffs near. Coming off a head of steam at Road America, Elliott returns to his home track where he's notched four top 10s in six starts.
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2. Kyle Busch (--)
Season-high: 2nd
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Busch is on fire right now and is just piling up points and top fives, clearly being the driver giving Hendrick Motorsports the most run for its money at the moment. He's been quite good at Atlanta from 2012 on, with a win and seven top-seven finishes.
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1. Kyle Larson (--)
Season-high: 1st
Season-low: 14th
Comment: Larson finished outside the top 10 for the first time since Kansas and, as we know, that wouldn't have happened had his teammate's brakes not failed at an extremely inopportune time. He's nearly unstoppable at the moment and, hey, he finished runner-up at Atlanta earlier this season. He might be Sunday's favorite.
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