When the field rolls off pit road and gets ready to take the green flag at Atlanta, it'll mark a completely new beginning for the 16 drivers that have qualified for this year's NASCAR playoffs. And for each of those, what they've done to make it to the point in which they have a shot to win the Cup Series championship only carries a certain amount of weight.
With the regular season now over and the playoff drivers finalized, this week marks a natural reset point as NASCAR shifts from the first 26 races of the year to the 10-race battle for the championship. And as such, the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings have been reset as well. The 16 playoff drivers have all moved up to the top of the Power Rankings, with each ranked by our standard Power Rankings methodology (which is, well, inexact -- to be completely honest with you, a lot of making a Power Ranking is based on recent performance and "feel").
Led off by the 16 playoff drivers, here are the latest NASCAR Power Rankings following the Southern 500 at Darlington and entering the start of the Round of 16 at Atlanta:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Larson | Kyle Larson losing the regular-season championship by one point was a reminder of all the points he lost out on by missing the Coca-Cola 600 due to his commitment to race in the Indianapolis 500. And if the five more playoff points Larson could've had keep him from advancing, it isn't going to be the last time he's asked if he regrets how Memorial Day Weekend went down. | ||
| 2 | Tyler Reddick | It must have been such a relief for Tyler Reddick's interior mechanic that, unlike what he said on the radio, it was *not* coming out both ends during the Southern 500. Has anyone interviewed that guy yet? I wonder what his story is. | ||
| 3 | Christopher Bell | Christopher Bell is looking for his third-straight appearance in the Championship 4, but he's still looking for his first win in a Round of 16 race. Bell's playoff wins the past two years have come in the Round of 12 (Charlotte Roval, 2022) and the Round of 8 (Martinsville 2022, Homestead 2023) | ||
| 4 | Chase Elliott | Chase Elliott would feel a little more viable as a championship contender right now if he had some more wins to go with a third-place finish in the regular-season standings. Since earning his first career win in 2018, Elliott has never had only a single win in a given season like he currently has in 2024. | ||
| 5 | Brad Keselowski | It's been 12 years since Brad Keselowski won his lone Cup championship back in 2012. If he wins the title this year, it'll mark the longest gap from one title to the next since Terry Labonte won the championship in 1996 a full 12 years after first doing it in 1984. | ||
| 6 | Ryan Blaney | One of the greatest sources of motivation for Ryan Blaney in this year's playoffs is the opportunity to win back-to-back Cup championships. It hasn't happened since Jimmie Johnson won five in a row from 2006 to 2010, and it's never happened since NASCAR's current playoff format was adopted in 2014. | ||
| 7 | Denny Hamlin | Maybe it's Denny Hamlin's year. Or maybe it isn't. It's a little hard to tell one way or the other right now, as Hamlin hasn't won a race since Dover in May but has still had six top-five finishes since then, including two runner-ups. | ||
| 8 | William Byron | In the first 24 races of the 2024 season, William Byron had only had two DNFs all year. Now, he's failed to finish the past two races at Daytona and Darlington, both due to crashes. For a driver who looked like a sure-fire Championship 4 contender earlier this season, that's an issue entering the playoffs. | ||
| 9 | Chase Briscoe | I think Chase Briscoe's win in the Southern 500 perfectly illustrates the upside of the NASCAR Playoffs. In another era, Briscoe vs. Busch would have just been a great race for the win. Instead, the stakes of a playoff spot combined with a victory in one of NASCAR's crown jewels turned that battle into an epic, all-or-nothing clash that will become a central moment in Briscoe's career. | ||
| 10 | Ty Gibbs | In the entirety of NASCAR history, there's only one driver who's ever gone from winning Rookie of the Year one year to becoming Cup champion the next. The year was 1980, and his name was Dale Earnhardt. | ||
| 11 | Joey Logano | In the most obvious of ways, Joey Logano's fuel mileage win in quintuple overtime at Nashville saved his entire season. Logano ended up 15th in the regular-season points standings behind Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain -- all of whom missed the playoffs. | ||
| 12 | Alex Bowman | Based on his recent history there, the playoffs opening at Atlanta is a problem for Alex Bowman. Since finishing 10th there in the first race following the track's reconfiguration, Bowman only has a single top-15 finish and three finishes of 26th or worse. | ||
| 13 | Daniel Suarez | He'll likely want to do it by a little more than what he did back in February, but Daniel Suarez has a chance this weekend to become the first driver in a long time to sweep both Atlanta races in a season. The last time that happened was when Jimmie Johnson did it in 2007 -- en route to the Cup title. | ||
| 14 | Austin Cindric | I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if there's any driver in the Round of 16 who could surprise people with a deep playoff run, it's Austin Cindric. He excels on speedways and road courses, and both the Round of 16 and Round of 12 happen to have one of those races each. | ||
| 15 | Harrison Burton | With his first career playoff berth, Harrison Burton becomes the third driver to make the playoffs while driving for the famed Wood Brothers. He joins Ryan Blaney (2017) and Matt DiBenedetto (2020) in doing so. | ||
| 16 | Martin Truex Jr. | Martin Truex Jr.'s playoff run will mark the sixth time in history that a driver has made the playoffs in what they have announced will be their final season before retirement. That group includes Rusty Wallace (2005), Jeff Gordon (2015), Tony Stewart (2016), Clint Bowyer (2020) and Kevin Harvick (2023). | ||
| 17 | Kyle Busch | Despite missing out on two chances to win the last two races, Kyle Busch is undoubtedly the hottest driver of any in Cup who didn't make the playoffs this year. If he keeps it up, we could be in for another playoffs like 2006 where Tony Stewart won three times despite not having made the Chase for the Championship. | ||
| 18 | Chris Buescher | Two races in May are the difference between Chris Buescher being a playoff driver this year and the playoff-less reality he now faces: Kansas, when he lost in the closest finish in Cup history, and Darlington, where he lost a huge chunk of points that would have put him above the cut line by the checkered flag in the Southern 500. | ||
| 19 | Bubba Wallace | While missing the playoffs will sour perception of Bubba Wallace's 2024 season, he already has five top fives and 10 top 10s, putting him well on track to having his statistical best season before the year is out. With the pressure of trying to make the playoffs off, expect Wallace to contend for at least one win before year's end. | ||
| 20 | Ross Chastain | Chalking up Ross Chastain missing the playoffs to him not having the same "edge" to his driving he had in 2022 and 2023 feels like a cheap narrative. It's probably going to be debunked in these next 10 races, because I feel really safe in saying that at some point Chastain is going to race a playoff driver hard enough to make that driver really mad. | ||
| 21 | Carson Hocevar | Josh Berry wrecking late in the Southern 500 helped mitigate the damage that Carson Hocevar's own crash could've done to his Rookie of the Year points lead. Hocevar continues to lead Berry by 11 points in that fight that's set to play out over the final 10 races. | ||
| 22 | Josh Berry | Chase Briscoe's Southern 500 win was terrific for morale at Stewart-Haas Racing, which will get to compete for its third and final Cup championship before it goes kaput in the offseason. Josh Berry's team is one of SHR's championship-winning teams, with crew chief Rodney Childers leading Kevin Harvick to the Cup title in 2014. | ||
| 23 | Michael McDowell | Michael McDowell must be steaming that he isn't in this year's playoffs for the same reason I cited for Austin Cindric's playoff chances. McDowell should be a legit contender to win at Atlanta, Watkins Glen, Talladega and the Charlotte Roval in the first two rounds of the playoffs. | ||
| 24 | Austin Dillon | I don't believe that Austin Dillon being denied a playoff spot for turning someone to win a race is going to change NASCAR forever like Richard Childress suggested it would. But it's going to invite a lot more judgment calls into determining what's incidental contact and what isn't, and it feels almost certain that's going to become an issue at some point down the road. | ||
| 25 | Todd Gilliland | Don't call it upset alert: Todd Gilliland is back at Atlanta, where he led the most laps in February (58) and pretty clearly had the best car in the field. If we're going to have a third-straight surprise winner, Gilliland should be at the top of the list of candidates. | ||
| 26 | Corey LaJoie | The Corey LaJoie haters are going to have to move the goalposts now. With a ninth-place finish in the Southern 500, LaJoie earned his first-ever Cup top 10 that isn't on a drafting track like Daytona, Talladega or Atlanta. | ||
| 27 | Justin Haley | Atlanta this weekend marks another golden opportunity for Justin Haley to make some noise at the front of the field like he did at Daytona. Since Atlanta was reconfigured in 2022, Haley has two top-10 finishes there as well as an 11th. | ||
| 28 | Noah Gragson | Like William Byron, Noah Gragson comes limping into the final 10 races coming off back-to-back DNFs. Prior to that, he'd only had three DNFs all year -- one of which came at Atlanta back in February. | ||
| 29 | Ryan Preece | Ryan Preece has plenty to gain over the final 10 races, as he's still looking for a ride in 2025. Races like the Southern 500, where he ran well and finished 12th, will certainly help his cause. | ||
| 30 | Daniel Hemric | The "Can Daniel Hemric Finish Better Than Ninth" watch is on. This weekend at Atlanta should be a good chance for him to improve on his season-best finish. |
