NASCAR Power Rankings After Ryan Blaney’s Dominant Victory In Atlanta

It may have taken nearly seven hours and one brutal rain delay, but Ryan Blaney dominated Sunday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Echopark Speedway, leading 171 of 263 laps from the pole en route to victory.

Blaney’s win, and the rest of the events of what was perhaps the longest night of the year for NASCAR shake up the latest edition of our NASCAR Power Rankings, which are a bit more volatile than they looked coming out of last weekend’s race in Chicago.

It also, perhaps improbably, draws him within 65 points of points-leader Denny Hamlin with just six weeks remaining until the Chase for a championship begins.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 20

One week ago, following Chase Briscoe’s win at Chicagoland, we wrote that the NASCAR Power Rankings were beginning to break off into tiers, with drivers needing to have multiple strong or poor performances in order to move up or down to a different tier.

While that remains true after Atlanta, we saw plenty of movement within all but one of those tiers, as poor runs and late-race wrecks led to a bit of a jumbling of both the rankings and the standings.

On top of that, the current top tier, which comprises three drivers, is perhaps as close as it’s been all season as we near a critical juncture of the season that will see the point standings reconfigured for the final 10-race Chase.

10) Carson Hocevar

After nearly three months inside the top 10 of rankings, Spire Motorsports star Carson Hocevar dropped out a week ago after an incident with rival Zane Smith led to a disappointing finish in Chicago.

However, Hocevar was quick to rebound this week in Atlanta.

The reconfigured version of the track suits Hocevar’s aggressive driving style to a T, and he didn’t take long to drive from his 14th starting spot all the way up to sixth at the end of the opening stage.

A tire going down cost Hocevar points at the end of stage two; however, he yet again rebounded quickly and was racing for the lead through the final stage.

With one lap to go, Hocevar led the pack and looked like he might pick up his second career victory. Ultimately, he had to settle for a third-place finish, but one that gets him right back on track in the rankings and standings.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 8th (-228)

9) Christopher Bell

If Christopher Bell does not win a race at some point this season, it will be borderline criminal. The Joe Gibbs Racing star picked up his fifth runner-up finish in 20 races this season as he pushed Ryan Blaney across the finish line for the win.

Unlike in previous instances, it’s hard to imagine Bell will be too upset with his finish in Atlanta.

Bell qualified all the way back in 32nd, and it took until the end of stage two for him to crack the top 10, when he finished in seventh. He then maintained track position and spent the rest of the night racing in and around the top five.

However, when it came time for the last lap of the race, there was just nowhere Bell could have gone to make a pass for the lead. Still, Bell had a strong performance on the night and gained crucial ground in the points.

Last Week: 9th NASCAR Point Standings: 9th (-240)

8) Chase Briscoe

Chase Briscoe was a victim of circumstance on Sunday night, as is so often the case for drivers at restrictor plate races.

Unfortunately for Briscoe, who finished second in Atlanta earlier this season and was hoping to build off of his first win of the 2026 season, very few other drivers found themselves caught up in wrecks.

That meant that when Kyle Larson drove up into Denny Hamlin and off the wall, causing him to come back down the track into Briscoe, it knocked him well down the running order.

After finishing the opening stage in eighth and running just outside the top 10 with laps winding down, Briscoe plummeted all the way down to 36th, which cost him one spot in the newest rankings and two spots in the point standings at an inopportune time.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Point Standings: 10th (-249)

7) Chris Buescher

Buescher makes up a spot in this week’s rankings almost entirely due to Briscoe’s late-race misfortune.

In fact, despite Ford often being the class of the field on restrictor plate tracks, Buescher was largely anonymous throughout the weekend in Atlanta.

He qualified in 13th position and failed to score in either of the opening two stages before ultimately bringing home a 10th-place finish.

Ultimately, you could call it a Chris Buescher-esque workmanlike day. But it’s also easy to wonder why Buescher, and RFK Racing as a whole, can’t seem to find speed at Atlanta while fellow Ford team Penske dominated.

Last Week: 8th NASCAR Point Standings: 7th (-223)

6) Kyle Larson

Last week, Kyle Larson finished in 34th at Chicagoland after spinning out without any contact from an opposing driver, but he maintained his spot in the power rankings because he showed great speed throughout the race prior to the incident.

This week, Larson was yet again fast throughout the race, finishing third in the opening stage and running in the top 10 late in the race. However, he was yet again to blame for his own race falling apart when he pulled up in front of Denny Hamlin despite not being clear of Hamlin’s front bumper, sending him into the wall with just a handful of laps remaining.

Larson was running in 11th at the time and looked as if he could well finish inside the top 10. Instead, he finished 34th, dropping him a spot in the power rankings and all but ending his chances of finishing third in the regular-season point standings.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 6th (-197)

5) Chase Elliott

Elliott, like Buescher, makes up a spot due to others’ misfortunes, in this case, his teammate Larson, rather than his own performance.

But the 2025 Atlanta winner certainly had a passable run on Sunday. After qualifying in seventh position, he dropped back a bit and took ninth at the end of stage one.

Elliott then spent the rest of the night running in and around the tail end of the top 10, but he struggled to ever really get to the front, eventually finishing 13th after a perfectly solid run that kept him steady in the point standings.

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

4) Ty Gibbs

After starting back in 23rd, Ty Gibbs yet again showed off his growing maturity on Sunday night, slowly working his way up through the pack and maximizing his day.

Gibbs was unable to score points at the end of the opening stage, but by the end of stage two, some smart strategy and heads-up racing netted him a sixth-place finish.

He then played his cards right despite the chaos at the end of the final stage to pick up a fourth-place finish and put some substantial distance between himself, Elliott, and Larson in the point standings.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Point Standings: 4th (-126)

3) Ryan Blaney

At one point, early in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, it appeared as if Tyler Reddick would just run away and hide with the points lead until the Chase for the championship began.

Then, Reddick began to come back to Earth, and Denny Hamlin emerged as a challenger, eventually overtaking him for the points lead and making it a two-horse race.

Now, after a dominant performance that saw Blaney win both stages and the race, he’s suddenly within just 65 points of Hamlin for the lead in the standings and entering a run of races at tracks that have historically treated him well.

Could Blaney make a genuine run at a championship? It seemed unthinkable just a few weeks back. But after Atlanta, it’s now looking like it would be a surprise if he didn’t challenge Hamlin and Reddick.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Point Standings: 3rd (-65)

2) Tyler Reddick

Tyler Reddick came into Sunday night’s race at Atlanta badly needing a strong run and solid finish after a seemingly unending string of bad luck.

Thankfully for Reddick, he was coming to a track that he won at back in February, and despite starting all the way back in 31st, he quickly diced his way through the field to finish second at the end of the opening stage and take a chunk out of Denny Hamlin’s points lead.

Reddick followed that up with another second-place finish in stage two, before finishing the race somewhat disappointingly in eighth.

However, even with the eighth-place finish, he netted the second-most points on the night and cut 20 points into Hamlin’s lead in the standings, nearly halving it in the process.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Point Standings: 2nd (-24)

1) Denny Hamlin

Like Elliott and Buescher, Hamlin wasn’t bad at Atlanta, but he certainly wasn’t as good as he hoped.

The Joe Gibbs Racing start qualified all the way back in 28th, and unlike Reddick, he was unable to carve his way through the field to pick up points in the opening stage.

He earned just two points in the second stage with a ninth-place finish, and then brought home a 12th-place finish at the end of the night.

It’s far from a red flag for Hamlin, as Atlanta is a unique track unlike any other the series will race at the rest of the season. But it did stunt the momentum that he had been building in recent weeks.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Point Standings: 1st