NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings Entering The 2026 Chase For The Championship

Roush Fenway Keselowski driver Ryan Preece had, essentially, one way to qualify for the 2026 Chase for the championship with one race remaining in the regular season.

Preece, who had never won a points race in 248 prior attempts, needed to do so at legendary Daytona International Speedway and needed to hope for misfortune from either Shane van Gisbergen or Austin Cindric, who sat in the final two Chase spots entering the race.

Well, against all odds, and despite a disastrous end to the opening stage that saw him go spinning through the infield while van Gisbergen won the segment and furthered his points lead, Preece did just that.

RYAN PREECE IS A NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNER!! pic.twitter.com/e1SjHoVH1N

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 30, 2026

The 35-year-old Connecticut native raced his way back to the lead and then held off a hard-charging pack in chaotic fashion to claim the win, all while van Gisbergen faltered to 26th after a late pit stop.

In the process, he did the improbable, jumping the Kiwi for the final Chase spot entering next weekend’s race at Darlington.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 26

Over the last two months, we’ve written at length about how tiers had begun to form in our weekly NASCAR power rankings. Those tiers later solidified, with only the back end of the rankings seeing regular significant movement.

Now, you can throw that all out the window.

With the end of the regular season comes a points reset for the 16 drivers who will now contend for a NASCAR Cup Series championship. And while the drivers who finished at the top of the standings in the regular season will have a points buffer to start the 10-race chase, it won’t be nearly as substantial as it was beforehand.

Here’s what our latest set of rankings looks like as we end the 2026 Chase for a championship.

10) Ryan Preece

Preece had spent the majority of the last month lingering just outside our power rankings in the 14th-16th range. However, it’s easy to justify such a sizable jump.

For one, it’s hard to imagine a bigger confidence boost entering the Chase than to qualify in the manner that Preece did. On top of that, seemingly every driver we’ve ranked No. 10 in recent weeks has fallen on hard times. Hopefully for Preece’s sake, that isn’t a sign of things to come.

But he now goes from hundreds of points behind leader Denny Hamlin to just one-hundred back thanks to the reset, and while he may not seem like a title contender, it’s easy to see a world in which Preece continues his climb up the standings in the weeks to come.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 16th (-100)

9) Chase Elliott

Chase Elliott’s season has fizzled of sorts in the late summer months after winning a pair of races early in the season. In fact, he remains the only Hendrick Motorsports driver with a win this season, despite three making the Chase.

However, Elliott showed good speed at Daytona and looked like perhaps the best car in the field at times during the second stage.

Now, with the points reset, Elliott is back in the game, and while his team hasn’t shown the speed to compete with drivers like Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, and others for the championship, we’ve seen drivers get hot at the right time in the past, and there’s no reason to believe Elliott can replicate that.

Last Week: 9th NASCAR Point Standings: 8th (-60)

8) Joey Logano

Unlike Elliott, Joey Logano’s season has been on the upswing in the last month or so. Logano won multiple races in that span and climbed from entirely outside of the Chase altogether to the ninth seed entering it.

Beyond that, the three-time series champion, as well as crew chief Paul Wolfe, have already shown that they’re up to the task of rising to the occasion when the stakes are the highest.

The concern for him, however, is whether Ford and Team Penske can deliver the equipment necessary, particularly on intermediate tracks, to win a fourth championship. We should learn a lot at Darlington, a track where he finished 33rd, well off the pace, in the Spring.

Last Week: 8th NASCAR Point Standings: 9th (-65)

7) Kyle Larson

We’re now nearly a full season-and-a-half of Larson not winning a race, an unthinkable stretch for a driver that many fans and many of those in the garage area believe is the most talented in the series.

Now, some of that is on Hendrick Motorsports for not bringing fast cars to the track. However, a lot of it also falls on Larson, who has made several unforced errors while in position to contend for wins.

If those errors continue into the Chase, Larson will be a non-factor, as he’s been for much of the year. But if they disappear, suddenly a season to forget for the defending series champ could turn into the potential to go back-to-back.

Last Week: 8th NASCAR Point Standings: 7th (-55)

6) Christopher Bell

Bell comes out on the wrong end of the seemingly weekly battle between him and teammate Chase Briscoe for both the fifth spot in the power rankings and the fifth spot in the point standings entering the Chase.

That seems to be the theme of the 2026 season for Bell, running well but coming up just that little bit short.

However, up until Daytona, Bell was on a streak of four consecutive top-10 finishes and had seven in his last eight races, including four runner-up finishes.

While failing to get to victory lane is surely growing old for Bell, if he finishes in second in each of the next 10 races, he’s likely lifting a champion at Homestead.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 6th (-5)

5) Chase Briscoe

Briscoe just barely secured the fifth seed in the Chase ahead of his teammate Bell. However, he enters after back-to-back disappointing finishes of 13th at Daytona and 26th at New Hampshire.

In four races prior, he had an average finish of 3.75. So he clearly has the speed in his car to be a serious title contender.

After a breakout season with Joe Gibbs Racing a year ago, the Indiana native has solidified his position as one of the sport’s top drivers and could further that agenda with a championship push.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Point Standings: 5th (-45)

4) Tyler Reddick

Is Tyler Reddick getting back into the groove at just the right time? After a stunningly bad summer that saw him drop from first (with a substantial lead) to fourth in the point standings, Reddick now has an average finish of 7.33 over his last three races, including a third-place finish on Saturday night at Daytona.

More importantly, he and his team seem to have stopped beating themselves.

If that continues into the Chase, Reddick is undeniably a title threat, as he showed when he won five of the first 11 races of the season.

We’ll learn a lot about whether Reddick has turned things around next week at Darlington, where he won earlier in the year and has an average finish of 2.33 in his last three races.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 3rd (-35)

3) Ty Gibbs

Ty Gibbs entered Saturday’s race at Daytona looking to jump Blaney for the second seed entering the Chase, and looked as if he’d have a good chance to do so after finishing second in the opening stage.

However, a last-lap crash saw him finish the race in 34th position, and rather than jumping Blaney, he actually fell behind Reddick, costing him five points in the title race.

Still, Gibbs has shown more than enough speed this year to be a bona fide title contender, and he has more than enough talent and confidence to go back that up.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Point Standings: 4th

2) Ryan Blaney

Blaney won the second stage of Saturday night’s race and looked in position for a strong top 10 finish before being wrecked by Ricky Stenhouse on the final lap, which sent him plummeting from seventh all the way down to 33rd.

Even so, he’s been fast just about everywhere the series has gone of late and may well be the biggest threat to Denny Hamlin laying claim to his championship.

The biggest question surrounding Blaney’s contendership is similar to the one facing Logano: will Ford and Team Penske bring the type of speed necessary to compete with Hamlin and the other Toyotas at 1.5-mile tracks.

If the answer is yes, then we’re in for a real fight.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Point Standings: 1st

1) Denny Hamlin

If Denny Hamlin sticks to his word and retires following the 2027 season, then he has two more opportunities to win the elusive championship that is missing from his otherwise legendary resume.

But he may have no better opportunity than the one he’s been presented with this season.

Hamlin and his team have had the fastest car for the better part of the last three months of the season, and even at tracks where he hasn’t had elite speed, he’s found a way to produce strong results.

He enters the Chase as the top seed with a 25-point buffer to Blaney, and even more to the other contenders, and he’s undeniably the favorite. Whether he closes the deal, only time will tell. He’s failed to do so on multiple occasions in the past. But 2026 just might be Hamlin’s year.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Point Standings: 1st