At first glance, you're likely to say the finish to Sunday's race at Phoenix wasn't much to look at, as Christopher Bell cruised to an easy victory with little to no challenge over the last long run to the finish. But upon further examination, you may have just been looking in the wrong place.
As Christopher Bell crossed the finish line well out in front of the rest of the field, an exciting battle was brewing for the fifth spot on the final lap. It came down to Turns 3 and 4 for Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain, as the defending Cup Series champion was able to get the drive off the final corner on Chastain's outside, holding back a charge by Chastain to the inside and squeezing just between the wall and the No. 1 Chevrolet to take his sixth-straight top five at the track that won him the Cup championship last fall.
The top of this week's CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings mirrors that finish, with Blaney continuing to hold his lead while Ross Chastain moves to second. Meanwhile, Ty Gibbs has parlayed a career-best third-place finish and his second top five in a row to move into third spot as he shows a significant leap in performance from his rookie year in 2023 to his sophomore campaign in 2024.
Here's a look at CBS Sports' updated NASCAR Power Rankings following Phoenix:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ryan Blaney | -- | Next up on the list of tracks Ryan Blaney is still looking to conquer is Bristol. Despite leading 493 laps throughout his career there, he only has a best finish of fourth on two different occasions. | |
| 2 | Ross Chastain | After the first three races of the season were all won by bowties, Chevrolet didn't put a single one of its drivers in the top five come race's end in Phoenix. Ross Chastain ended up being best in class of the Chevrolets in sixth. | ||
| 3 | Ty Gibbs | Ty Gibbs' emergence early in the season comes just ahead of a return trip to Bristol, where he led 102 laps in the Night Race last fall. Calling it now: His first win is coming and it's coming really soon. | ||
| 4 | Denny Hamlin | Denny Hamlin won the pole and led 68 laps at Phoenix, and he did it with a red No. 11 paint scheme that surely reminded old-time NASCAR fans of another car just like it. It had the feel of the old Budweiser No. 11 cars out of Junior Johnson's shop, and for awhile it was about as fast as those cars were. | ||
| 5 | William Byron | If Hendrick Motorsports wants to cap off its 40th-anniversary season with a championship, it's got a lot of work to do when it comes to Phoenix. William Byron was among the Hendrick cars that weren't effective in traffic, as he ended up 18th despite having top-10 finishes in both stages. | ||
| 6 | Martin Truex Jr. | March 27 will mark 20 years to the day that Martin Truex Jr. earned his first ever win in the NASCAR Busch Series at Bristol back in 2004. To this day, he's still looking to win his first Cup race there. | ||
| 7 | Tyler Reddick | While he would have had much more of an advantage if Bristol's spring race were still on dirt, it's not as though Tyler Reddick is any slouch there on concrete. He's got a fourth-place finish at Bristol in fall 2020. | ||
| 8 | Kyle Larson | Speaking of which, it's actually quite shocking in retrospect that Kyle Larson didn't win the Dirt race at Bristol a single time. He was penciled in as one of the favorites each year, but his best finish at Bristol Dirt was only a fourth in 2022. | ||
| 9 | Daniel Suarez | One of Daniel Suarez's first great runs at the national level came in a 2015 Xfinity Series race at Bristol where he finished second. That race was a notable one in that Joey Logano led all 300 laps that afternoon. | ||
| 10 | Noah Gragson | Noah Gragson said something very notable on Fox's pre-race show: He's "happy again for the first time in awhile." Gragson is the sort of driver who thrives when he's feeling good about himself, and it's showing in the way he's run to start the year. | ||
| 11 | Kyle Busch | If I'm Richard Childress, I take whatever cars RCR brought to Phoenix and send them straight to the smelter's yard once I get back to Welcome, N.C. When Kyle Busch runs as poorly as he did Sunday, something is deeply wrong. | ||
| 12 | Brad Keselowski | Brad Keselowski starred in a new commercial for new sponsor Consumer Cellular that featured his No. 6 Ford as a roofless convertible. Interestingly, NASCAR actually had a Convertible Division from 1956 until 1959, and the remnants of that series today include the Duel qualifying races at Daytona and the spring race at Darlington. | ||
| 13 | Michael McDowell | Prior to Phoenix, Michael McDowell told CBS Sports it "was never a dream" 10 years ago that he could win at his home racetrack. That dream is within reach these days, as an eighth-place finish was McDowell's second-straight top 10 at Phoenix. | ||
| 14 | Christopher Bell | Of the seven career wins Christopher Bell has had in the Cup Series, all seven have come on different racetracks. That's good for Bell if he defends his Bristol win from a year ago, as the NASCAR record book counts Bristol and Bristol Dirt as different racetracks. | ||
| 15 | Chris Buescher | Since we referenced Darrell Waltrip here last week, it's worth noting Waltrip is the all-time winningest driver at Bristol with 12 victories, including an astonishing seven in a row from 1981 to 1984. Chris Buescher has one Bristol win in the 2022 Night Race. | ||
| 16 | Todd Gilliland | Todd Gilliland led four races in his rookie year of 2022 and didn't lead a single race in all of 2023. This year, he's already led three of four races with 14 laps led at Phoenix adding to his total. | ||
| 17 | Joey Logano | While he's run better than his results suggest, a crash at Phoenix meant Joey Logano has opened the 2024 season with three finishes worse than 28th and two DNFs. That should be easy enough to bounce back from, but the quiet part is Logano's winless streak is now about to hit one year running. | ||
| 18 | Bubba Wallace | As fast as the Toyotas were in Phoenix, Bubba Wallace wasn't among them. Wallace never really broke out of midpack and only briefly flirted with the top 10, eventually just missing out on a top 15 in 16th. | ||
| 19 | Chase Briscoe | Beef alert: Erik Jones and Chase Briscoe had a difference of opinion over an on-track run-in, with Jones voicing his displeasure through the media and Briscoe offering his response through the media. Something to watch at Bristol. | ||
| 20 | Chase Elliott | Chase Elliott has still yet to score a single top 10 in 2024, but for awhile Sunday he looked to have the best Chevrolet in the field. Elliott ran as high as third and earned points in both stages, but ended up mired back in 19th by race's end. | ||
| 21 | Carson Hocevar | Carson Hocevar continued to impress at Phoenix, qualifying 10th and then finishing 15th. That run comes just in time for a return trip to Bristol, where he got everyone's attention last fall by nearly earning a top-10 finish before coming home 11th. | ||
| 22 | Alex Bowman | Compared to some he's had in the past -- 2016 in particular -- it wasn't much of a memorable homecoming for Alex Bowman in Phoenix. The Tucson native was fourth of the Hendrick cars at his home track, finishing 20th. | ||
| 23 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has gone on record with his affinity for Bristol, and he's come close to winning there several times before. Stenhouse's best Bristol finish is a second on three different occasions over the last 10 years. | ||
| 24 | Corey LaJoie | The longest active streak of races without a DNF is no more. After Corey LaJoie was collected in a mid-race crash at Phoenix, his streak of 44-straight races running at the finish was snapped. | ||
| 25 | Austin Cindric | Austin Cindric's early-season momentum was sapped in Phoenix, as he lasted just six laps before getting collected in a crash that ended his day. He'll try to bounce back at Bristol, but that's a track where Cindric has never finished better than 20th on concrete. | ||
| 26 | Erik Jones | Prior to a bad pit stop that set him back in the field, the opening stage at Phoenix offered a glimpse into what Erik Jones and his Legacy Motor Club team can be. Jones qualified fourth and drove up to second, and at one point was challenging Ty Gibbs for the race lead. | ||
| 27 | Ryan Preece | Ryan Preece has had some solid performances early in 2024, including at Phoenix where he ran second for many laps on strategy, but he doesn't have the finishes to show for it yet. Good thing that Bristol is next, as Preece is a short-track ace and has an Xfinity Series win there back in 2018. | ||
| 28 | Daniel Hemric | Daniel Hemric and his team deserve some credit, as they recovered from a spin and crash in practice to qualify 21st with a car they had to repair overnight. Unfortunately, a loose wheel doomed Hemric to a 28th-place finish, two laps down, on Sunday. | ||
| 29 | John Hunter Nemechek | John Hunter Nemechek has gotten in trouble a couple of times over the years for being overly aggressive on the racetrack. He's got to especially make sure he watches that in Cup, because the veterans in that series won't put up with the sort of incident he caused at Phoenix for long. | ||
| 30 | Justin Haley | Justin Haley slides back into the Power Rankings this week, as he avoided trouble at Phoenix on his way to a 24th-place finish. Last year, Haley had a sixth-place finish in the Bristol spring race on Dirt. |
