WILLIAM BYRON MAINTAINS NO. 1 POSITION IN NASCAR POWER RANKINGS AFTER TALLADEGA
William Byron has kept the top spot in the NASCAR Power Rankings after finishing seventh in last weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Another multi-time winner fell multiple spots after failing to finish the superspeedway race while one Toyota driver made a significant move up.
NBC SPORTS NASCAR POWER RANKINGS
1. William Byron (Last week: 1) — Drafting style races are the wild cards of the NASCAR season, as evidenced by multiple drivers scoring their first top-10 finish of the season. Byron used Talladega to continue adding to his resume. He avoided incidents and crossed the line seventh. Byron has finished seventh or better in the last five races while winning twice.
2. Chase Elliott (2) — Elliott followed up his Texas win by scoring 12 stage points and finishing 15th at Talladega. He lost some positions in the final stage while joining other drivers trying to make the third lane work but avoided the last-lap incident. Elliott is now third in the Cup standings.
3. Kyle Larson (3) — Larson finished 21st for the second consecutive week, but he finished a superspeedway race. This was something he struggled with last season. Larson also maintained his spot atop the Cup standings. Larson, who has one win this season, is tied for the series lead with four top-five finishes in the first 10 weeks. He is the only driver to lead more than 500 laps this season.
4. Tyler Reddick (7) — Reddick crashed in the Daytona 500 and finished 17 laps down at Atlanta. Last weekend at Talladega, Reddick avoided a spinning Michael McDowell on the final lap and passed Brad Keselowski to capture his first superspeedway win in a Cup car. Reddick, who returns to the playoffs, has not finished worse than 10th in the last five races.
5. Martin Truex Jr. (8) — Truex has yet to win this season, but he remains in contention for the regular-season championship. He is 15 points behind Larson after finishing 11th at Talladega and his average finish of 10.0 is tied with Byron for the best in Cup this season.
6. Denny Hamlin (4) — Hamlin has two wins this season but continues to fall in the Cup standings after late-race issues. He spun racing for the lead at Texas and finished 30th. He was spun into the outside wall by a sliding Nemechek at Talladega. Hamlin finished 37th. Hamlin has led laps in the last three races while winning one stage but hasn't finished inside the top 10 since his win at Richmond in March.
7. Bubba Wallace (6) — Wallace was caught up in an all-Toyota incident in the final stage that also collected John Hunter Nemechek, Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin. This incident ended Wallace's streak of four consecutive top-15 finishes, which includes a season-best fourth-place finish at Martinsville. Wallace is now 11th in the Cup standings.
8. Alex Bowman (NR) — Talladega was a quiet race for Bowman. He scored a stage point, worked on fuel-saving along with the rest of the drivers in the field and he avoided the last-lap incident that collected numerous other drivers. Bowman crossed the line fifth, his fourth top-five finish of the season and his second on a drafting track.
9. Chase Briscoe (10) — Briscoe headed to Talladega looking for his third consecutive top-10 finish. He went one lap down on Lap 100 after an issue with his tires and was involved in a caution caused by Christopher Bell spinning. Briscoe was able to get back on the lead lap and finish 12th after a last-lap incident collected a good portion of the field. Briscoe remains 12th in the Cup standings and in a playoff position.
10. Ty Gibbs (5) — Gibbs had the best average finish in Cup after the fix six weeks of the season. He had delivered five top-10 finishes and three top fives. Gibbs has since finished 16th, 19th, 13th and 22nd. He has still finished every race this season while keeping himself top 10 in points.
Dropped out: Christopher Bell