NASCAR Power Rankings See A Change At The Top After Denny Hamlin’s Win At Michigan

Denny Hamlin made it two weeks in a row with victories in the NASCAR Cup Series on Sunday, backing up his impressive showing at Nashville with another strong drive at Michigan International Speedway.

Hamlin avoided several big wrecks that took out competitors such as Chase Elliott, as well as teammates Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs, and in the end, he ran away to win by more than 11 seconds, the largest margin of victory for a Cup Series race on an oval since Martin Truex Jr. in 2018.

The win was also the 63rd of Hamlin’s Cup Series career, moving him into a tie for ninth all-time alongside the late Kyle Busch, with whom he was teammates for several years at Joe Gibbs Racing.

It also gave Hamlin a boost in the newest edition of our NASCAR Power Rankings.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 15

Since his win at the Daytona 500, Tyler Reddick has held a vice grip on the top spot of our weekly power rankings. Of course, the four additional wins that he picked up in the weeks to come.

Last week, after Hamlin’s win in Nashville pulled him to within 100 points of Reddick in the standings, we noted that he was the first real threat to Reddick’s spot at the top dog in the rankings.

However, Reddick remained atop the rankings due to the fact that he, too, was continually putting in top-five and top-10 performances each week.

Was Hamlin’s win at Michigan enough to make a change at the top? Find out below!

10) Chris Buescher

After running strongly in practice at a track where he has an impeccable track record, many believed Chris Buescher was a threat to win entering Sunday’s race.

That didn’t materialize for a number of reasons, one of which we will touch on later in this piece. But Buescher did what he’s done for the last few seasons for Roush Fenway Keselowski: he ground out a result.

After qualifying back in 14th, Buescher worked his way up to eighth by the end of the opening stage and hung around there for most of the rest of the race, eventually bringing home a solid ninth-place finish.

Last Week: 10th NASCAR Point Standings: 8th (-245)

9) Daniel Suarez

When Daniel Suarez won the Coca-Cola 600 over Memorial Day Weekend, it made for a great story, but not many out there believed that Suarez could continue running well enough to truly challenge the top drivers in the point standings.

Well, Suarez has proven the doubters, myself included, wrong. He ran up front for much of last week’s race in Nashville, winning stage two and picking up 10 points in the process.

He then came to Michigan, qualified in 11th, and finished in the top-10 in both stages before bringing home an impressive sixth-place finish. The strong run of results sees Suarez enter the top 10 of the power rankings for the first time since March at Circuit of the Americas, and he’s climbing up the standings as well.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 9th (-251)

8) Christopher Bell

If Christopher Bell didn’t have bad luck, he likely wouldn’t have any luck at all right now. The Joe Gibbs Racing star finished second to Hamlin a week ago after a last-lap pass and was hard on himself for failing to close out the victory.

But for much of the season, Bell has run well only to have his race undone by things out of his control.

That was the case again on Sunday, when he was the victim of a brutal crash after making contact with Chase Elliott, who got loose and slid up the track into Bell.

The incident turned another shot at victory into a 31st-place finish, and to add injury to insult, team owner Joe Gibbs said that Bell was dealing with pain in his wrist and ankle after the crash.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Point Standings: 10th (-252)

7) Carson Hocevar

It’s no secret that Carson Hocevar isn’t exactly making a ton of friends out on the track, and Hocevar told BroBible that he’s not bothered by that fact.

But at some point you have to wonder if his aggressive nature behind the wheel comes back to bite him. Hocevar was responsible for the lap 83 wreck that took out championship leader Tyler Reddick and several others, and he nearly caused multiple other incidents throughout the day.

On the other end of the spectrum, Hocevar is supremely talented and has plenty of speed. He ran inside the top 10 all day before ultimately coming home with a fifth-place finish. As long as he’s having those types of runs, perhaps it won’t matter if any of his competitors like him.

Last Week: 9th NASCAR Point Standings: 7th (-241)

6) Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson has three career victories at Michigan International Speedway, so it’s safe to say he knows how to get around the place pretty well.

But despite a strong run and solid (by his standards) finish, Larson just didn’t quite have the speed from his career that needed to compete for the victory.

The Hendrick Motorsports star ran inside the top 10 all day, and inside the top five for parts of it, before eventually bringing home a fourth-place finish.

Larson is doing everything he can to remain in the championship fight, and has done so successfully. But his winless streak is now over a year and each passing weak becomes more and more frustrating for Larson and his fans.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Point Standings: 6th (-216)

5) Ty Gibbs

In four starts at Michigan prior to Sunday’s race, Ty Gibbs had an average finish of 7.0, including back-to-back third-place finishes the last two seasons.

So it’s easy to understand why he and his team were confident about their chances of victory, especially after qualifying on the second row. But Gibbs, like Reddick, was swept up in the crash on lap 83.

While his damage wasn’t terminal, he lost several laps en route to a 25th-place finish. Gibbs did pick up nine points thanks to a strong second-place finish in the opening stage. But his finish at the end of the day is disappointing for a driver and team who came in with high hopes.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 5th (-199)

4) Chase Elliott

Chase Elliott looked to be the best of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers for much of the day on Sunday, and even looked like a contender for victory after finishing fourth in the opening stage and winning the second.

Pehraps that’s why Elliott was so aggressive while racing alongside Bell on lap 148, leading to a violent crash between the two, which Elliott took full credit for.

On one hand, the 32nd-place finish is brutal for Elliott, who had a potentially race-winning car. On the other hand, he did have a potentially race-winning car, which wasn’t the case often in 2025, and he banked 17 key points with strong runs in the opening two stages.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 4th (-187)

3) Ryan Blaney

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Elliott is Ryan Blaney, who brought his Penske Racing No. 12 car home in eighth position and slightly padded his points gap back to Elliott and Gibbs in fourth and fifth.

However, Blaney suffered from the same issue that Buescher ran into: Ford just isn’t very fast on intermediate tracks right now. Blaney’s teammate, Joey Logano, was the highest-finish Ford in the race in seventh, and no Ford drivers qualified in the top 10 for the race.

Thus far, Blaney and Buescher have done a great job of extacting as much speed as possible from the car. But the lack of speed from the manufacturer, which will switch to a new body in 2027, could prevent Blaney from actually challenging for a championship in the long haul.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Point Standings: 3rd (-157)

2) Tyler Reddick

For the first time this season, Tyler Reddick sees a number other than 1 next to his name in our power rankings.

While Reddick still sits first in the point standings, with a moderate buffer to Hamlin in second, he’s seen his lead more than halved in the last two weeks, and suffered his first DNF of the season on Sunday after getting swept up in the wreck on lap 83.

Prior to that, Reddick looked on course to contend for another victory, qualifying in third and winning the opening stage. So it’s certainly not like the sky is falling. But Hamlin is exerting pressure on Reddick for the first time all year.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Point Standings: 1st

1) Denny Hamlin

No driver spent more time atop our power rankings in 2025 than Denny Hamlin, only to have his heart ripped out (again) in the final race of the season, losing out on an elusive first Cup Series championship to Kyle Larson at Phoenix.

Now, Hamlin yet again rules the rooster after back-to-back victories, giving him three for the season. Just like last week at Nashville, Hamlin had to come from the back of the pack after starting on the pole. Last week, it was do to a start violation, this week, Hamlin needed to make unapproved changes to his car before the race began.

Still, the 45-year-old veteral, who looks as good as ever, stayed the course, slowly working his way through the pack and saving his best for when it matter most. In the final 30 or so laps of the race, Hamlin went from passing for the lead to winning by over 11 seconds.

Now, he takes over the top spot in our rankings while preparing to head to Pocono Raceway, a place where he’s won five times, including just last season.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Point Standings: 2nd (-51)