NASCAR Power Rankings After Chase Briscoe’s Playoff Win At Talladega

After two weeks of the round of eight of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers have now secured their spot in the championship four in Phoenix.

Chase Briscoe came from seemingly nowhere to win Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, joining teammate Denny Hamlin in locking themselves into the final four.

With just one week remaining in the semifinal round, Gibbs is in a fantastic spot to claim three of the four spots in the run for a championship, while next week’s race at Martinsville features a bevvy of drivers in must-win scenarios.

NASCAR Power Rankings Following Talladega Shake Up

Talladega was supposed to be a wildcard.

For one, Team Penske drivers Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano were big favorites among the playoff drivers to win and clinch their spot in the championship four. But the chaotic restrictor plate race was also expected to throw a wrench into the plans of playoff drivers who could get caught up in the traditional “big one” crash.

Instead, the race played out in fairly straightforward fashion, leaving a clear playoff picture heading into the final race of the round of eight.

8) Chase Elliott

While Chase Briscoe was celebrating in victory lane, Hendrick Motorsports star Chase Elliott was contemplating how he could find a way to win next week in Martinsville and keep his season alive.

After a mid-race penalty ruined Elliott’s day at Las Vegas a week ago, he entered Talladega needing a huge points day or a victory. Instead, he was the lone playoff driver swept up in an early crash at the end of the opening stage.

Elliott now sits last in the standings among the remaining playoff drivers and will need to find a way to victory lane in Martinsville to keep his championship hopes alive. He has just one career win at the track, but has finished in the top five each of the last three races.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Playoff Standings: 8th (62 points below cut line)

7) Joey Logano

The clock is ticking for reigning Cup Series champion Joey Logano to rekindle the magic he’s found so many times before in the playoffs.

Logano entered the round of eight likely needing a win in any of the three races to advance. He manufactured a strong sixth-place finish at Las Vegas, but that did nothing to improve his situation.

At Talladega, Logano led 35 laps and controlled the race early. But a late-race caution put him in a bad spot on strategy and he ended caught in the wrong lane on the bottom, plummeting outside the top 15.

Now he, like Elliott, will (likely) need to win next week in Martinsville. However, Logano hasn’t had the same success as Elliott at the famed short track in recent races, recording zero top-five finishes in the last three trips.

Last Week: 8th NASCAR Playoff Standings: 6th (38 points below cut line)

6) Ryan Blaney

This round of the playoffs just hasn’t gone according to plan for 2023 series champion Ryan Blaney.

After blowing a tire at Las Vegas in the opening race of the round, Blaney likely needed to win at Talladega or Martinsville, or have two incredible points finishes, to make the championship four.

Instead he, like Logano, got on the wrong side of strategy and stuck in the wrong lane at the end before finishing a wildly disappointing 23rd.

The good news for Blaney is that he’s won each of the last two fall races at Martinsville to put himself into the championship four. The bad news, however, is that he finished outside the top 10 when the series raced there in March.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Playoff Standings: 7th (47 points below cut line)

5) William Byron

Regular-season champion William Byron has been on the wrong end of lady luck the last two weeks, and it has put him in a difficult spot.

In Las Vegas, he got caught up in a terrifying wreck after some bizarre miscommunication while running second late in the race. This week, Byron was running second on the final lap when teammate Kyle Larson ran out of fuel in front of him, shuffling Byron down the order.

He seemed to have recovered coming to the checkered flag, but got spun by Carson Hocevar, falling from a top-five finish to 25th. Now Byron, like the three aforementioned drivers, likely needs to win at Martinsville.

He has two prior wins at the track, but was well off the pace when the series raced there in April.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Playoff Standings: 5th (36 points below cut line)

4) Kyle Larson

Larson running out of gas on the final lap dropped him from a potential victory to a 26th-place finish. But unlike Byron, it’s not all doom and gloom.

He racked up enough points in Las Vegas the week prior, combined with the playoff points he entered the round with, to give himself a strong buffer a Martinsville.

What he has to do now, however, is hope that none of the four drivers outside the cut line go and win at Martinsville. If they do, Larson will find himself in an extremely tense points battle with the next driver on our list.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Playoff Standings: 4th (36 points above cut line)

3) Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell was pretty anonymous at Talladega. But that may not be a bad things.

Bell entered the race at the Superspeedway needing to avoid complete disaster, and he did just that. He scored points in both stages before taking home a solid eighth-place finish, bolstering his positions in the standings.

He, like Larson, now entered the final race of the semifinal round needing only to avoid a new winner in order to qualify for the championship race for the third time in four years.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Playoff Standings: 3rd (37 points above cut line)

2) Chase Briscoe

For a while on Sunday, it looked like things could well go south for Chase Briscoe.

He began the race in fourth in the playoff standings, 15 points above the cut line. But after an early penalty and a strong finish from Blaney and Logano in stage one, it looked as if that buffer could quickly disappear.

But Briscoe rebounded quickly and strongly, taking advantage of a well-timed caution to win the second stage and then surging to the front in the end of the race, winning and clinching his first appearance in the championship four.

In his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Briscoe now has three victories and has established himself as a genuine championship threat.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Playoff Standings: 1st (Locked in to championship four)

1) Denny Hamlin

There’s certainly an argument here for Briscoe to be No. 1 over Denny Hamlin.

After all, Hamlin was largely invisible in Sunday’s race and came home in 24th. But the reality is that doesn’t matter much. The Joe Gibbs Racing superstar clinched his spot in the championship four a week ago at Las Vegas and the ensuing round of eight races at Talladega and Martinsville mean little to nothing to him.

Hamlin and his team and undoubtedly focused completely on the championship race at Phoenix, and if they get things right there, not a single soul is going to remember how he ran at Talladega.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Playoff Standings: 2nd (Locked in to championship four)