NASCAR Power Rankings After Chase Elliott’s Impressive Victory At Texas Motor Speedway

Heading into the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, a lot of talk around the garage centered on how the new points format could benefit 2020 series champion Chase Elliott due to his impressive consistency.

On Sunday, he rubberstamped that theory by picking up his second win of the season, and doing so in dominant fashion, by leading the most laps at Texas Motor Speedway.

Elliott became just the second driver in the Cup Series, behind Tyler Reddick, to win multiple races this season. And perhaps more importantly, he showed the race-winning speed that he and his team were seemingly lacking in previous seasons.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 11

Elliott began the season hot with a strong showing in the Daytona 500 and hasn’t dipped any lower than sixth in power rankings since that point.

But Sunday’s showing at Texas was his most impressive performance to date in 2026. Even in his earlier win at Martinsville, Elliott needed the benefit of a well-timed caution and some fortunate strategy to get to the front of the pack.

That wasn’t the case this time around. The series’s most popular driver was clearly the best of the four Hendrick Motorsports cars on track from the moment the green flag dropped, and by the mid-way point of the race, he had established himself as a genuine threat for the win.

With the victory, Elliott takes a notable step forward in our latest power rankings and also makes some notable gains in the Cup Series point standings.

10) William Byron

After a red-hot start to the 2025 season, Elliott’s teammate William Byron hasn’t had anywhere near as much success to begin 2026.

However, Sunday’s 10th-place finish was a step in the right direction.

No, it wasn’t the speed or the finish that you’d expect from the No. 24 team. However, he recovered from a mid-race spin to take home an eighth-place finish and, critically, didn’t suffer a catatostrophic issues like many drivers around him in both the points and power rankings.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 10th (-218)

9) Brad Keselowski

Little by little, Brad Keselowski and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, on the whole, keep chipping away and working their way up the point standings.

Keselowski once again found himself mired deep in the pack to start Sunday’s race after a poor performance in qualifying. But he benefitted from a timely caution and some savvy pit strategy to take home a third-place finish in the second stage and eight important points.

He had to pay the piper to begin the final stage, dropping to the back of the pack after pitting. But a timely late caution meant Keselowski was able to rebound for a perfectly solid 13th-place finish at the end of the day.

Last Week: 10th NASCAR Point Standings: 9th (-215)

8) Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson entered the weekend as one of the favorites to take home the checkered flag, having won two of the last six races at Texas with a fourth-place finish thrown in for good measure.

But for whatever reason, Larson and his team were well off the pace for much of the weekend. He qualified in 11th, which wasn’t too bad given how early in qualifying he made his run.

But he quickly sank back through the pack before spinning out in the second stage and slamming into the wall. Larson eventually returned to the race but finished 87 laps down in 34th position.

In a race where Hendrick Motorsports finished with three drivers in the top 10, Larson was largely anonymous.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Point Standings: 8th (-208)

7) Carson Hocevar

How did Carson Hocevar follow up his first career NASCAR Cup Series win? How about coming to Texas and qualifying on the pole for the second year in a row?

Much like last year, however, Hocevar led early before falling back through the pack a bit. He did manage to take home a second-place finish in the opening stage after a late restart, and then finished ninth in stage two before taking the checkered flag in seventh.

Ultimately, it was another highly productive week for the young Spire Motorsports star, who continues to rise in both the power rankings and point standings.

Last Week: 8th NASCAR Point Standings: 6th (-193)

6) Chris Buescher

Chris Buescher is officially in the zone, and it feels like his first win of the 2026 season isn’t far around the corner. The RFK Racing star has now put together three-straight top-10 finishes, including back-to-back top fives.

Buescher, a Texas native, was the fastest car in the field from start to finish this weekend, qualifying in third position and then running inside the top 10 for the majority of the day before bringing home a fifth-place finish.

He now heads to Watkins Glen, a place he’s recorded four consecutive top-10 finishes, including a win in 2024, with a ton of momentum, and nobody would be surprised to see him take home the checkered flag yet again.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Point Standings: 5th (-181)

5) Ty Gibbs

At one point during Sunday’s race, it appeared that Ty Gibbs might have the type of speed in his race to compete for his second win of the year. He started in 10th position and worked his way all the way up to fourth by the end of the opening stage.

However, Gibbs found himself mired back in the pack after a split strategy in the middle of stage two and wound up on the wrong end of an incident with Ryan Preece that sent him into the wall and ended his day early.

Gibbs wound up finishing in 38th, which cost him two spots in the point standings, but only one in the power rankings due to his impressive showing before the wreck.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 7th (-196)

4) Ryan Blaney

A 10th-place finish doesn’t even begin to explain the type of up-and-down day that Ryan Blaney had at Texas.

Blaney started the race all the way back in 31st after a mistake in qualifying, but quickly ripped through the field and was up to 13th late in the opening stage. However, he then got stuck in the wrong gear trying to exit his pits toward the end of the first stage and plummeted all the way back down the order.

He then began to chip away again, but on the following pit stop, Blaney found himself pinned in behind the car of Erik Jones, costing him spots again on pit road.

Eventually, Blaney found a small bit of luck thanks to a late Corey Heim crash, which allowed him to stay out on track while others pitted and move up to seventh with just a handful of laps remaining. Blaney then hung on to come home at the tail end of the top 10, putting a bow on what could have been, and often looked like, a far worse day.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 4th (-155)

3) Chase Elliott

There’s an extremely reasonable argument here to have Elliott one spot higher than this in our power rankings. After all, he’s the only driver other than Reddick with multiple wins this season.

But Elliott ultimately slots strongly into third place this week after perhaps his most impressive performance in years. Not only does Elliott look like the best Hendrick Motorsports car on track right now, but he also looks like a true title contender, and you can see his confidence growing each week.

A confident Chase Elliott is a dangerous Chase Elliott, and the rest of the field better be ready to deal with him week in and week out at this rate.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 3rd (-117)

2) Denny Hamlin

Hamlin narrowly holds on to the second spot in our rankings over Elliott after a strong day at the track that saw him lead five times for 21 laps before finishing as the runner-up.

Early on in the race, Hamlin looked like he may well have had the car to beat. But in a race where track position was king, he was never able to find his way to the lead in the second half of the race, and ultimately, he spent much of the closing stages of the race looking at Elliott’s bumper.

It marks the second time this season Hamlin has finished second behind Elliott despite potentially having a better car. That’s becoming a running theme that he’ll want to shake. But for now, sitting second in the point standings is a solid consolation prize.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Point Standings: 2nd (-109)

1) Tyler Reddick

Every race that Tyler Reddick doesn’t win this season sort of feels like a surprise at this point. Especially when you consider that Toyota looked like the fastest manufacturer for much of the weekend in the Cup Series.

But the points leader, who already has five wins through 11 races this season, isn’t likely to scoff at a fourth-place finish, especially when you factor in the nine bonus points he earned for finishing second in stage two of the race.

Reddick just continues to churn out strong finish after strong finish, and if he does that, good luck to anyone trying to run him down for the points lead.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Point Standings: 1st.