NASCAR Power Rankings After Chase Briscoe’s First Win Of The Season At Chicagoland

After spending much of the first half of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series seemingly snake bitten, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe has found his way lately and rubberstamped a strong run of form with a win Sunday night at Chicagoland.

Briscoe was able to take the lead from Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron on the final round of green flag pit stops and never looked back from there, picking up the sixth in of his Cup Series career and the first of the season.

In doing so, Briscoe vaulted himself up the charts in our latest NASCAR Power Rankings and solidified himself as a driver to watch as the chase for a championship nears.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 19

Briscoe’s win sees him make the largest jump in this week’s rankings. However, he’s far from the only person to see movement after what was a chaotic weekend at times.

Once again, Toyota proved to be the dominant manufacturer in the Cup Series this season, while star drivers for other manufacturers took a hit this week after poor finishes due to either a lack of speed, a mistake in the pits, or just sheer misfortune.

As the final 10 races of the season inch closer and closer, both point standings and power rankings are beginning to solidify into tiers, giving us a clear picture of who is and is not a real championship threat.

10) Daniel Suarez

Prior to Sunday night’s race, Daniel Suarez’s crew chief, Ryan Sparks, said that his driver would need a blue-collar type of day to come away with a strong finish.

Suarez qualified all the way back in 26th, and for one of the few times this season, all three Spire Motorsports cars seemed to struggle for speed (one could ask if that had anything to do with Chris Gabehart not having setup data from Joe Gibbs Racing…).

But a blue-collar day was exactly what Suarez had, patiently avoiding trouble and working his way up for a 14th-place finish. Was it a great race for Suarez? Of course not. But it was solid enough to keep him in the top 10 of our power rankings.

Last Week: 9th NASCAR Point Standings: 11th (-257)

9) Christopher Bell

With each passing week, Christopher Bell appears to look more and more confident driving with the broken wrist he suffered during a crash at Michigan last month.

How good have the Toyotas been of late?

Bell said after his second-place finish, “It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it’s frustrating to get beat by another monkey.”

While that seems a little harsh on both him and Briscoe, it was still a strong performance that saw Bell climb back into the rankings for the first time since Michigan.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 10th (-252)

8) Chris Buescher

Chris Buescher was the fastest of all the Ford drivers for much of the weekend at Chicagoland, qualifying in third and running inside the top 10 for the entirety of the first stage before finishing it in sixth.

However, a mistake during green-flag stops in the second stage put Buescher a lap down and behind the eight ball in stage two.

Ultimately, it was a mistake that cost him a shot at a strong finish, as he was only able to climb back to 19th despite having top-10 speed in his car.

One bad day won’t doom Buescher’s season. But for a team built on consistency, it does hurt him in the rankings and point standings.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Point Standings: 7th (-223)

7) Chase Briscoe

Chase Briscoe showed last season that when he gets hot, it can be extremely difficult for anyone to beat him.

Well, after a snake-bitten start to the season, it appears that Briscoe is starting to get hot.

After a runner-up finish a week ago in Sonoma, he came into Chicagoland, qualified in fifth place, ran inside the top 10 all night, and eventually came away with the victory and a gigantic 70-point night.

Briscoe moved up three spots in both the power rankings and point standings, and he seems to be trending in the right direction at the right time of the year.

Last Week: 10th NASCAR Point Standings: 8th (-226)

6) Chase Elliott

It just feels as if Chase Elliott is stuck in a rut at the moment when it comes to having elite speed on a weekly basis.

To start the season, Elliott looked like a true title contender. At the moment, he’s spending seemingly every week fighting to finish in the back end of the top 10.

Sure, Sunday’s 11th-place finish isn’t awful by any means. But Elliott was clearly the slowest of the four Hendrick Motorsports cars throughout the night. He holds on to sixth place in the power rankings and even gained a spot in the points due to struggles for our fifth-ranked driver, but Briscoe, Bell, and others are quickly hunting him down.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Point Standings: 5th (-180)

5) Kyle Larson

You could argue that Larson deserves to fall behind Elliott, and perhaps even Briscoe, after finishing 34th following a spin that cost him two laps and was entirely his own doing.

But Larson has consistently been one of, if not the fastest Chevy in the field of late, and that continued on Sunday before his wreck.

Larson qualified on the outside of the front row for Sunday’s race and finished second behind William Byron in the opening stage. He was then running in second when he spun.

He can’t afford to continue to make big mistakes going forward. But he’s bought himself enough of a buffer of late to not drop this week.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 6th (-181)

4) Ty Gibbs

After a fantastic weekend at Sonoma, Ty Gibbs came to Chicagoland and continued to chip away at Ryan Blaney’s advantage for third place in the points and our power rankings.

He, Blaney, and Larson seem to have solidified themselves in a second tier behind Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick in our power rankings for the time being, although things can change in a hurry.

While Gibbs will be disappointed with an eighth-place finish when his teammates were all fighting for a win, he still picked up points in both stages and gained a couple of points on Blaney for third in the standings.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 4th (-137)

3) Ryan Blaney

What Ryan Blaney continued to do week after week with equipment that the rest of the garage seems to agree isn’t up to snuff is nothing short of remarkable.

After qualifying back in 14th, Blaney charged into the top 10 early in Sunday’s race before a strategy miscue left him shuffled deep in the pack and took away any chance of scoring points in the opening stage.

However, in stage two, the strategy factor played back into Blaney and crew chief Jonathan Hassler’s hands when they ran long and caught a caution in the middle of a green flag pit cycle. That allowed Blaney to trap a number of cars a lap down and come home with a fifth-place finish in the second stage.

He ultimately finished the race in seventh, the top-running Ford, and minimized the points damage to Gibbs before heading to a series of tracks where most believe he’ll contend for a win.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Point Standings: 3rd (-113)

2) Tyler Reddick

When Tyler Reddick won five of the first nine races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, it seemed like everything that could go right was going right for him and his team.

Fast forward to the last month or so, and it’s the exact opposite.

Reddick has still shown the type of speed to run inside the top five and compete for victories most weeks, but lady luck has not been on his side at all.

Two weeks ago in Coronado, he was running in second when he cut a tire down with two laps to go. Last week in Sonoma, he suffered from a power steering issue. This week, Reddick was running inside the top 10 when a piece of debris punctured his radiator, ending any hopes of a strong finish.

Reddick is now well behind Denny Hamlin in the points, and his grasp on the second spot in our power rankings is tenuous at best.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Point Standings: 2nd (-44)

1) Denny Hamlin

To make matters worse for Reddick, it feels like Denny Hamlin is a lock to finish inside the top five at every single intermediate track the series runs on these days.

Hamlin qualified on the pole for Sunday’s race and appeared to have the best long-run car for much of the night. He racked up 11 points over the first two stages, and then had a strong final stint of the race to finish in third, which somehow felt like an underwhelming result given the speed he showed at times throughout the night.

Hamlin and his team are the picture of consistency at the moment, and that’s bad news for Reddick and anyone else hoping to beat them for a championship.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Point Standings: 1st