NASCAR Power Rankings After Denny Hamlin’s Win At Michigan

Audio By Carbonatix

The NASCAR Cup Series is well and truly in the heat of its annual summer swing and now is the time for championship contenders to make their mark. Here are the top 10 drivers in the series right now following Sunday’s race at Michigan International Speedway.

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan featured several drivers that fans believe will compete for a championship come the end of the season. Some of those drivers were able to convert strong runs into strong finishes, while others will have to go back to the drawing board as the series prepares for its first ever race in Mexico City.

10) Carson Hocevar

Hocevar’s 29th place finish in Michigan and 18th place position in the point standings wouldn’t seem to warrant this ranking. But for the third week in a row, he had potential race-winning speed. Unfortunately for he and Spire Motorsports, untimely mechanical/tire failures meant only one of those weeks ended in a top-five finish. But if they keep knocking the door down, a first-career win for the controversial 22-year-old is just a matter of time.

9) Bubba Wallace

Don’t look now, but after back-to-back strong weeks, Wallace now finds himself 10th in the points and after a rough stretch, he’s begun to show the consistent speed that him even farther up the standings to begin the year. Wallace backed up a sixth-place finish at Nashville with a fourth-place finish in Michigan and currently sits solidly inside the playoff cut line.

8) Tyler Reddick

A tire issue in practice put Reddick behind the eight ball and after working his way through the field, Reddick nerfed his own day by stopping deep in his pit box on the final round of stops. Shockingly, the 23XI star still doesn’t have a win this season and his last top-five finish came all the way on April 6 at Darlington.

7) Chase Elliott

Yes, Elliott is fifth in the Cup Series point standings. But yet again he seems to be well off the speed showed by teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson. Elliott finished 15th for the second week in a row and in a series that is all about winning races, he doesn’t seem to have race-winning speed most weeks out.

6) Ryan Blaney

Blaney’s boom or bust 2025 season came up bust yet again at Michigan. As per usual, Blaney and his 12 team showed the type of speed needed to finish in the top five, if not win the race. But a spin mid-way through the race led to a bent toe link and Blaney went to finish 32nd, his fifth finish of 30th or worse this year to go along with six top-fives.

5) Ross Chastain

Add another top-10 finish to Chastain’s continually growing, impressive resume in 2025. While he didn’t quite have race-winning speed, he brought home a sixth-place finish, his eighth top-10 of the year, and moved up a spot to eighth in the driver standings.

4) Christopher Bell

When Bell won three races in a row in the first month of the season, it looked as if he might be in store for an historic season. He’s remained strong, but hasn’t quite been able to get back in the win column outside of the exhibition All-Star Race. While teammates Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs finished in the top three at Michigan, Bell finished in 16th and didn’t score points in either of the first two stages.

3) Kyle Larson

There had been talk of a Larson slump of late after his disappointing run at the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 double. But all he’s done in the last three races is rack up three top-10 finishes, including a top-five Sunday at Michigan and a win two weeks ago in Kansas. Any talk of Larson’s demise is greatly exaggerated.

2) William Byron

With 10 laps to go on Sunday, it looked as if Byron would pick up his second win of the year. Instead, Denny Hamlin was able to get by, and Byron had to pit when he ran out of gas with two laps remaining. Still, 19 stage points, including a stage two victory, were enough to salvage a good points day despite a 28th-place finish, and Byron maintained a firm grip on the series points lead. But you have to wonder if countless missed opportunities at victories will come back to bite him later on.

1) Denny Hamlin

Is this the year the future Hall of Famer finally gets his elusive championship? With his win on Sunday, Hamlin became the winningest driver in Joe Gibbs Racing history with 57, surpassing former teammate Kyle Busch. He also became just the 10th driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win a race after his 700th start.

Hamlin now has three victories on the year, tying Larson and Bell for most in the series this season. He and new crew chief Chris Gayle appear to have come together seamlessly, and Hamlin just keeps throwing down a marker as a serious championship threat.