Slowly but surely, the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings have gradually begun to mirror what the top of the Cup Series championship standings look like after 11 races.
With his first win of the season at Dover, Chase Elliott managed to extend his points lead to 50 markers over Ryan Blaney. Consequently, Elliott has also surpassed Blaney in the Power Rankings, moving up from third spot last week to second this week. Now, the last frontier Elliott needs to reach is Ross Chastain in first -- Something he did on the final restart at Dover, when he took the lead from Chastain and motored away over the course of the final green flag run.
Keeping with the trend established last week at Talladega, most drivers in the Power Rankings made either incremental gains this week or incremental losses. Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Martin Truex Jr., and Chris Buescher led the way for ranked drivers by improving three spots, while Ricky Stenhouse vaulted from being unraked to 27th by virtue of a second-place finish. Joey Logano was the biggest loser with a change of -4 from last week, with Tyler Reddick and the Dillon brothers following him among drivers to lose a chunk of spots.
Here's a look at our updated rankings in their entirety:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ross Chastain | -- | One of the factors that has made Ross Chastain very popular among fans is that he races just as hard for third on the last lap as he did for 15th when he was in JD Motorsports cars in the Xfinity Series. Chastain is going to fight to stay at the point he's reached in his career. | |
| 2 | Chase Elliott | While Chase Elliott had started to build a points lead in the regular season championship standings, he had been missing a win to affirm that lead. After Dover, problem solved. | ||
| 3 | Ryan Blaney | The good news for Ryan Blaney was that he was able to use strategy to win Stage 2 at Dover, earning 10 points towards catching Chase Elliott for the points lead. The bad news is, Elliott won while Blaney faded to a 26th-place finish. | ||
| 4 | Kyle Busch | AJ Allmendinger's wheel coming off likely cost Kyle Busch a shot at the win, but it didn't cost him a top 10 finish. Busch would recover from getting trapped a lap down on pit road and having to take a wave around, finishing seventh. | ||
| 5 | Alex Bowman | Like Busch, Alex Bowman also had to fight back from going to pit road at the wrong time. His car looked better than Busch's over the final run, as he motored to a fifth-place finish. | ||
| 6 | William Byron | William Byron's team endured a setback on Saturday when Byron crashed his primary car, forcing him to a backup for the race. Byron ended up 22nd, his third finish outside the top 10 since winning at Martinsville. | ||
| 7 | Chase Briscoe | -- | Sometimes, the matter of having a good day or not is a relative thing. A 13th place finish isn't the greatest thing for Chase Briscoe as his standards have been raised, but he'll take it after an early crash at Talladega. | |
| 8 | Kyle Larson | Kyle Larson didn't quite have the car to pull off the "Spin and Win" after looping it around on the frontstretch. But the "Spin and get a sixth-place finish" is nothing to sniff at either. | ||
| 9 | Christopher Bell | Christopher Bell is starting to look like the driver he was envisioned to be when he was promoted to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021. Bell has now had two top five and four top 10 finishes in six races since COTA in March. | ||
| 10 | Martin Truex Jr. | If the outside lane had been open just a teensy bit more, Martin Truex may very well have left Dover with a third place finish. He ended up crashing out of a top five finish, but still ended up 12th. | ||
| 11 | Tyler Reddick | Tyler Reddick's No. 8 team got behind the 8 ball when he spun out in practice. Things never got any better, as Reddick had a tire issue and then crashed on the backstretch, finishing 30th. | ||
| 12 | Austin Dillon | Austin Dillon's finish at Dover wasn't what we meant last week when we talked about him having lots of twos and threes. Dillon was a non-factor throughout the day, finishing a disappointing 23rd. | ||
| 13 | Kevin Harvick | Kevin Harvick was running outside the top 10 late in the going at Dover, but he ended up rallying over the final 25 laps to finish ninth. That's the sort of unheralded charge that's befitting of the "cagey vet" label. | ||
| 14 | Joey Logano | Evidently, Penske Power was completely zapped at Dover. Joey Logano crashed in Turn 1 after a run-in with Erik Jones, and he ended up limping home in 29th. | ||
| 15 | Erik Jones | With another top 10 finish at Dover, Erik Jones has back-to-back top 10s for the first time since the fall of 2020. After earning six top 10s in all of 2021, Jones and Petty GMS already have four this season. | ||
| 16 | Daniel Suarez | The first rule of racing is to wreck someone else without wrecking yourself. If that's indeed what Daniel Suarez was trying to do when he divebombed Corey LaJoie, it didn't quite work -- but Suarez finished 14th anyway. | ||
| 17 | Chris Buescher | While Brad Keselowski may be the face of RFK Racing, Chris Buescher looks like its most promising asset. Buescher won his first career pole at Dover and led the first 18 laps before finishing eighth. | ||
| 18 | Kurt Busch | For the second week in a row, Kurt Busch got sent into the wall after getting run into by someone else. Busch limped home in 31st, marking his third straight race involved in a crash not of his own making. | ||
| 19 | Justin Haley | Justin Haley led 19 laps at Dover after leading six laps over the course of four years entering the race. He ended up just short of a top 10, but has been top 15ing his competition to death this season. | ||
| 20 | Aric Almirola | Dover is a special place for Aric Almirola's racing career, as it was the site of his first Truck Series win in 2010. It didn't have another memory in store for him this weekend, as Almirola finished one lap down in 19th. | ||
| 21 | Brad Keselowski | On the converse of Chris Buescher's big weekend, Brad Keselowski took a backseat among RFK drivers at Dover. Keselowski got a top 10 in a stage, but ended up one lap down in 20th at the finish. | ||
| 22 | Bubba Wallace | Bubba Wallace was running 11th with just over 25 laps to go, but faded in the closing laps and ended up 16th. Still, a trouble-free day and a finish just outside the top 15 is as much as Wallace can ask for at this point. | ||
| 23 | Austin Cindric | Austin Cindric learned a hard lesson about Dover, as he spun and hit the wall in Turn 3 in the first accident of the race. Cindric's crew was unable to fix steering damage before the crash clock ran out, leaving Cindric with a last place finish. | ||
| 24 | Michael McDowell | -- | Although Michael McDowell's top 10 streak came to an end in Dover, he and his race team will be happy with a 17th place finish. It's only the fifth top 20 finish McDowell has had in 11 races this season. | |
| 25 | Cole Custer | Cole Custer has been due for things to go right for awhile, and a 15th place finish at Dover was an encouraging sign. It's his second top 15 finish in the last three races. | ||
| 26 | Denny Hamlin | Denny Hamlin led twice at Dover for 67 laps in the early going, then had a wheel fall off. His car was fast enough to make it back to fourth, but he got wrecked trying to drive past a spinning lapped car. It's just been that kind of year. | ||
| 27 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s second place finish vaults him all the way back into the Power Rankings and then some. Stenhouse has now had a runner-up finish in all three seasons since joining JTG Daugherty Racing. | ||
| 28 | Ty Dillon | It was a tough day all around for Ty Dillon at Dover. Dillon had a right front tire starting to come apart during a long green flag run, and he ended up four laps down in 27th. | ||
| 29 | Corey LaJoie | Corey LaJoie was running up and inside the top 15 before contact with Daniel Suarez put him in the wall in Turns 3 and 4. Fortunately, he was none the worse for wear and managed to finish 18th. | ||
| 30 | Harrison Burton | -- | Despite a spin in practice, Harrison Burton was able to use strategy to get a top 10 in Stage 2, kept his nose clean, and finished 24th -- best of any rookie in the field, and trouble free too. |
