William Byron has retained the top spot in the NASCAR Power Rankings after finishing seventh last weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Another multiple winner fell several places after failing to complete the superspeedway race, while a Toyota driver made a significant rise.
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NBC SPORTS NASCAR POWER RANKINGS
1. William Byron (Last week: 1) — Draft-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 further expand his resume. He avoided incidents and crossed the line in seventh. Byron has finished seventh or better in the past five races while winning twice.
2. Chase Elliott (2) — Elliott followed up his win in Texas by scoring 12 stage points and finishing 15th at Talladega. He lost some positions on the final stage as he joined other drivers trying to make the third lane work, but avoided the incident on the final lap. Elliott is now third in the Cup standings.
3. Kyle Larson (3) — Larson finished 21st for the second week in a row, but he finished a superspeedway race. This was something he struggled with last season. Larson also retained his spot at the top of 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 have completed more than 500 laps this season.
4. Tyler Reddick (7) — Reddick crashed in the Daytona 500, finishing 17 laps down in Atlanta. Last weekend at Talladega, Reddick avoided a spinning Michael McDowell on the final lap and passed Brad Keselowski to earn his first superspeedway victory in a Cup car. Reddick, who returns to the playoffs, has not finished worse than 10th in the past 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 the Cup this season.
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6. Denny Hamlin (4) Hamlin has two wins this season but continues to fall in the Cup standings after late-race problems. He turned racing for the lead in Texas and finished 30th. He was spun against the outside wall through a sliding Nemechek at Talladega. Hamlin finished 37th. Hamlin has led laps and won one stage in the last three races, but has not finished in the top 10 since his victory in Richmond in March.
7. Bubba Wallace (6) — Wallace was involved in an all-Toyota incident on the final stage, also involving John Hunter Nemechek, Erik Jones and Denny Hamlin. This incident ended Wallace’s streak of four consecutive top-15 finishes, including a season-best fourth-place finish at Martinsville. Wallace is now eleventh in the cup standings.
8. Alex Bowman (NR) — Talladega was an uneventful race for Bowman. He scored a stage point, worked with the rest of the drivers in the field to save fuel and avoided the last-lap incident that plagued countless other drivers. Bowman finished fifth, his fourth top-five finish of the season and his second on a draft run.
9. Chase Briscoe (10) — Briscoe headed to Talladega looking for his third consecutive top-10 finish. He was a lap down on lap 100 after a problem 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 twelfth after an incident on the final lap took over much of the field. Briscoe remains 12th in the Cup standings and is in a play-off position.
10. Ty Gibbs (5) — Gibbs had the best average finish in the Cup after six weeks of the season. He had five top-10 finishes and three top-five finishes. Gibbs has since finished 16th, 19th, 13th and 22nd. He has still finished every race this season while maintaining himself in the top 10 in points.
Fallen out: Christopher Bell
