NASCAR Power Rankings After Ryan Blaney’s Win At Phoenix

Ryan Blaney picked up his first win of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season in Phoenix on Sunday with a remarkable comeback effort after having to go to the back of the pack twice following miscues by his pit crew.

In doing so, Blaney becomes the first driver not named Tyler Reddick to win a race this season and stakes his claim as a contender for the season-long points championship.

Additionally, Blaney’s victory sees him move up in our latest NASCAR Power Rankings, which saw a ton of movement this week as teams that we expect to compete for the championship finally came to the forefront.

2026 NASCAR Cup Series Power Rankings: Week 4

Perhaps the most impressive part of Reddick’s historic three-race win streak to begin the season is that it came on a pair of restrictor tracks and one road course, each of which lends itself to some degree of randomness to the results.

Phoenix, meanwhile, was expected to be the first true barometer of where teams are at on more “traditional” types of tracks.

Unsurprisingly, Blaney rose to the occasion at a track where he’s now won two races in a row and finished in the top two in six of the last eight races. But Blaney wasn’t the only driver to impress, as multiple new faces enter this week’s top 10, while others surprisingly maintained or even gained on their already impressive standing.

10) Denny Hamlin

The last time Denny Hamlin raced at Phoenix, he had his heart ripped out after dominating for most of the race, only to lose the 2025 series championship following a late caution and the decision to take four tires (more on that later).

So it should come as no surprise that he impressed on Sunday.

The man who won six races last season finished in the top five in each of the first two stages before taking the checkered flag in fifth position. His 47 points on the day were the third-most of any driver in the field, and made a massive 11-spot jump up in the points standings.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Point Standings: 12th (-118)

9) Michael McDowell

Michael McDowell moved into the top 10 of our power rankings a week ago after an impressive top-five finish at Circuit of the Americas. But not many, myself included, expected him to back that performance up this week in Phoenix.

Well, McDowell proved the haters, of which there are many, wrong, taking home a ninth-place finish and running in the top 15 for the majority of the day.

Spire Motorsports has been one of the most impressive teams in the entire field to start the 2026 season, and McDowell, the team’s most experienced driver, has been the most consistent member of the team on the track.

Last Week: 9th NASCAR Points Standings: 8th (-114)

8) Kyle Larson

It may seem a bit ridiculous that Larson falls one spot in our power rankings from a week ago despite a third-place finish. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Larson, as he and crew chief Cliff Daniels often do, brought his best at the end of the race. He failed to score points in the opening stage after starting the race on the front row, then scored just two points in the second stage.

However, he and his team kept plugging away, and a late two-tire call on a pit stop got him some much-needed track position. For a brief moment, he even looked as if he might steal a win; however, an ill-timed caution took away his chance at claiming the lead, and he didn’t quite have enough speed at the end of the race to truly compete for the victory.

Last Week: 7th NASCAR Points Standings: 10th (-116)

7) Joey Logano

Logano, like Blaney, has been historically strong at Phoenix in recent years, with three victories to his resume since 2020. It looked like he might add to that collection after qualifying on the pole on Saturday. But things unraveled a bit as the race unfolded.

Logano didn’t quite have the long-run speed of his teammate, but was still fast enough to claim a third-place finish in each of the stages, giving him 16 valuable points in the process.

Those points became even more valuable late in the race when he seemingly misjudged a pass of AJ Allmendinger and drove up across the nose of Allmendinger’s car, sending him careening him into the wall. Ultimately, that left Logano with a 31st-place finish. However, the speed he showed throughout the day was both encouraging and valuable, as his stage point meant he finished the day with the 15th most points in total.

I debated switching Logano and Larson in this week’s rankings. However, Logano’s consistent speed throughout the race gives him the slight edge.

Last Week: 6th NASCAR Points Standings: 7th (-112)

6) Christopher Bell

Sunday will represent a big “what if” for Joe Gibbs Racing star Christopher Bell in the week to come. Bell, who won this same race a year ago, led a race-high 176 laps and looked in control before a caution with just over 20 laps to go.

Unfortunately, he, like Hamlin, took four tires on the final pit stop while others, like Blaney, took two. Bell restarted in eighth and very nearly ran down Blaney for the victory, but came up just a couple laps short, which Blaney himself admitted in a post-race interview.

Still, Sunday was hugely productive for Bell, who showed he and his team still have massive speed and gained 18 spots in the standings.

Last Week: UR NASCAR Points Standings: 6th (-112)

5) Chase Elliott

Unlike Bell, Chase Elliott had a wildly difficult day on Sunday, which began the day prior when he qualified in 26th position.

Through three races, Elliott had been extremely consistently running in the top 10. However, he hardly sniffed the top 10 on Sunday, missing out on points in both stages. The only time he get to the front of the field, it was due to a forced strategy where he stayed out while everyone else pitted.

He quickly sank like a stone through the field and could only recover to finish 23rd. One bad weekend certainly won’t kill Elliott’s season, but it does cause him to take a hit in both the standings and this week’s rankings.

Last Week: 3rd NASCAR Points Standings: 4th (-97)

4) Shane Van Gisbergen

If only finishing in second in last week’s road course race at Circuit of the Americas was considered a disappointment for Shane Van Gisbergen, then Sunday’s 11th-place finish at Phoenix is an unqualified success.

The Kiwi, who is in just his third full-time season of NASCAR and second at the top level, having never run on ovals before, struggled mightily in his first two trips to Phoenix a year ago, finishing 31st and 24th.

During the race broadcast, they noted that Van Gisbergen cited the track as one of his weakest and hoped for a solid top-15 finish. Well, that’s exactly what he got, running inside the top 15 for most of the day and just missing out on a top 10.

Last Week: 5th NASCAR Point Standings: 5th (-109)

3) Bubba Wallace

Bubba Wallace just continues to put in solid run after solid run through the first four races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season.

Wallace struggled in Saturday’s qualifying session, missing his marks and qualifying all the way back in 28th. He also struggled to work through traffic early in the race, missing out on points in stage one.

However, by the end of the second stage, he had worked his way up to the fifth position, grabbing six key points. He then remained in or around the top 10 for the remainder of the race before taking home a strong sixth-place finish.

Wallace finished the 2025 season as one of the series’ hottest drivers, and it looks as if he’s carried that momentum into 2026 with no signs of slowing up.

Last Week: 2nd NASCAR Points Standings: 3rd (-72)

2) Ryan Blaney

After qualifying in fifth position on Saturday, Blaney quickly established himself as one of, if not the car to beat on Sunday, taking the lead late in the first stage and claiming the 10 points that came with the stage victory.

However, he was cycled to the back of the pack on two separate occasions after his pit crew failed to secure a wheel during a stop, making him come back in the first time around and getting a small assist from the crew of his teammate, Joey Logano, on the second occasion.

Still, Blaney was able to fight his way back through the pack both times and was challenging Bell for the lead just as the caution fell with a little over 20 laps remaining.

On the final stop, Blaney opted for two tires, while Bell took four. Blaney came out second, Bell eighth. In the end, it proved the difference in the race win as Blaney passed Kyle Larson and Ty Gibbs in the last 15 laps of the race to take the lead and held on for the victory.

Last Week: 4th NASCAR Points Standings: 2nd (-60)

1) Tyler Reddick

At some point, Tyler Reddick’s legendary heater to start the 2026 season was bound to end. After becoming the first driver in series history to win each of the first three races of the season, Reddick came back to earth a bit on Sunday.

However, even then, he did so with a strong performance.

Reddick was the best-qualifying Toyota driver on Saturday, starting eighth, and he worked himself into the top five by the end of the opening stage, finishing fourth.

His solid day continued with an eighth-place finish in the second stage, which is exactly where he ended the race. Yes, it wasn’t another victory. However, Reddick had yet another strong points day and continues to show he’s a genuine contender, if not the favorite, to win the championship at the end of the season.

Last Week: 1st NASCAR Points Standings: 1st