Power Rankings: Win Three For Bell at Phoenix Keeps JGR Driver on Top
After his third straight win, it's Christopher Bell's world right now in the NASCAR Cup Series, and we're all just living in it. It goes without saying that Bell maintains his top spot in our rankings this week, but where do the rest of the full-time drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series shake out?
Racing America On SI's Toby Christie, Joseph Srigley, and Zach Evans rank all 36 NASCAR Cup Series championship contenders after the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway, and heading into this week's Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sunday, March 16, 3:30 PM ET on FS1, FOX Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Phoenix Race Results
As the first driver to win three consecutive NASCAR Cup Series events in the era of the seventh-generation racecar, there’s no doubt that Christopher Bell is at the top of the heap, right now, in NASCAR’s top division. -Joseph Srigley
Byron snagged the pole, won Stage 1, and led 83 laps on the path to a sixth-place finish Sunday at Phoenix. Sure, he hasn't won three straight like Bell, but he's got a win in his back pocket from Daytona, and he's quietly putting on a consistency clinic. -Toby Christie
After an alright start to the NASCAR Cup Series campaign, Denny Hamlin came within a couple feet of snapping a 29-race winless streak, but ultimately came up just short of Christopher Bell, who scored his third straight victory. -JS
Elliott is looking like he's nearing a complete return to his 2018 to 2022 form, when he was one of the most consistent competitors week-in and week-out in the NASCAR Cup Series. This week, he finished about as bad as he'd been all weekend long, which speaks volumes as to how good Phoenix was as he finished the race in 10th. -TC
Tyler Reddick was the runner-up in stage one and fifth in stage two. However, power steering issues plagued him throughout the final stage, and Reddick fought to a 20th-place finish. -Zach Evans
Another week, another solid effort for Busch and his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team. Driver No. 8 finished eighth, now sits eighth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, and he maintains his sixth-place ranking in our weekly power rankings. -TC
You know, Bowman had a knack over the last couple of seasons of having great runs, but then would fade as the race was drawing to a close. This year, he's doing the opposite. He was kinda nowhere to be found early in Phoenix, then, as the race closed in on the finish, there he was again with a seventh-place finish. -TC
THIS is exactly what Kyle Larson, the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team, and the driver's fanbase desperately needed. A third-place finish, which is a momentary return to normalcy for the 2021 champion. However, there's a disturbing trend forming... Larson alternates finishes of third and finishes of 20th-or-worse each week. This week he was third, what does next week hold? -TC
Sunday's fifth-place finish at Phoenix marked the first top-five finish for Chris Buescher through the season's opening four races, but the driver of the No. 17 Ford has been carrying the banner for the RFK Racing organization as he has three top-10s already this year. If he can keep up this pace, he'll record 27 top-10s in 2025, which would easily top his career-high of 17 set in 2023. -TC
Ryan Blaney was running the top 10 when the engine expired on the No. 12, relegating him to a 28th-place finish. Finishing in the top five in both stages salvaged the points day for Blaney, and he remains in the top five in the standings. -ZE
Early in the day, Joey Logano lost the lead on a restart violation. However, Logano bounced back, led a few more times during the race for a total of 81 laps, and even picked up some stage points in the second stage before finishing 13th. Logano has now led 207 laps, more than anyone else in the NASCAR Cup Series. -ZE
This guy is just never dead. Just when you feel like he's going to have a bad day, he pops up out of nowhere near the end of the race, and churns out another solid finish. John Hunter Nemechek did it again this week as he brought home the No. 42 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota in 14th, marking his third top-15 finish in four races -- he had six all of last year. -TC
Another solid result was in the cards for Ross Chastain on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway, after the Trackhouse Racing driver was one of the few adversaries of the option tire strategy – to the point where he used both sets of option tires before the final run of the event. -JS
Unfortunately, Carson Hocevar took 36th-place honors at Phoenix, as one of several drivers collected in the lap 99 incident. Hocevar had nowhere to go as Chase Briscoe’s car bounced into him, squeezing Hocevar into the outside wall exiting turn two. -ZE
Other than an early-race incident with Cole Custer, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. had a pretty quiet afternoon at Phoenix Raceway, running in the middle of the pack and coming home a respectable 21st. If these are the bad days for HYAK Motorsports, then the No. 47 team is in for a solid year. -JS
Perhaps no team has shown more grit and determination than McDowell and the No. 71 Spire Motorsports group so far. At Phoenix, the team suffered two tire failures and finished 22 laps down in 27th, but saved a set of option tires for late in the race to claim the Xfinity Fastest Lap award and bonus point. McDowell had also started at the rear of the field for an unapproved adjustment before the race. -ZE
Bubba Wallace’s day ended with a hard hit into the wall following a brake failure, bringing out the caution on lap 268. Wallace was on the verge of the top 10 at the time on a day where 23XI Racing just couldn’t catch the breaks they needed. -ZE
After showing speed throughout the year, Josh Berry picked up a result reflecting that performance with a fourth-place finish at Phoenix. It is the first time the Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 has finished in the top five at Phoenix Raceway, improving on a seventh-place finish by Morgan Shepherd in 1995. -ZE
If Todd Gilliland hasn’t patented the quiet, uneventful top 20 afternoon, then he probably should, because Sunday at Phoenix Raceway he put together another one, bringing home a solid 17th-place finish, and advancing him further up the NASCAR Cup Series point standings. -JS
Austin Cindric led six laps early in the second stage, taking advantage of the option tires to charge to the front. He’d later finish seventh in the stage, but trouble on pit road hurt his track position and Cindric finished 19th. -ZE
Wednesday was the biggest points haul of Chase Briscoe’s NASCAR Cup Series career and catapulted the No. 19 from a must-win situation back into normalcy. Unfortunately for Briscoe, he also catapulted over the right-rear of Justin Haley in Sunday’s race at Phoenix and failed to finish the race. -JS
While he hasn't been as good at closing out races as Nemechek, his teammate, has been this year, Erik Jones is turning in decent results. Jones notched an 18th-place finish on Sunday after running inside the top-five for portions of the race. -TC
While most will continue to associate Preece's 2025 season with his airborne crash at Daytona, the driver in his first year with RFK Racing is really starting to make something of his new opportunity. He was 18th at Atlanta, took a Stage win and looked to be heading to a decent finish at COTA before misfortune late, and he finished 15th after leading 34 laps this week at Phoenix. Not bad. -TC
It was a quiet afternoon for Zane Smith at Phoenix Raceway, who methodically drove the No. 38 Aaron’s Dream Machine into the top 15, and eventually to a ninth-place finish by the end of the Shriners Children’s 500. Now, in the last two weeks, all three FRM drivers have recorded top 10 finishes. -JS
Ty Dillon and team saved both sets of their option tires for the end of the race and appeared poised for a special day in the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet. A speeding penalty on pit road dashed hopes of a stunning victory, but Dillon still fought back to 16th after the penalty. -ZE
After a top 10 finish at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), Noah Gragson ran into some misfortune at Phoenix Raceway, getting involved in the multi-car accident that ended the day of several drivers during the second stage. Gragson returned to the track after that wreck, but finished nine laps down, ending the day in 26th. -JS
The short oval of Phoenix Raceway doesn’t play to the strengths of Shane Van Gisbergen, and it showed on Sunday, with very little pace early on in the event as the Auckland, New Zealand-native attempted to learn the one-mile oval. Then, a wreck in the mid-pack ended his day. -JS
For the record, the afternoon wasn’t all bad for Daniel Suarez. The driver of the No. 99 Chevrolet was running inside the top-10 at the time of his race-altering incident, when Katherine Legge crashed into his path, knocking a potential great finish into the gutter and outside the top-20. -JS
All three Spire Motorsports cars qualified in the top 10, including an eighth-place starting spot for Justin Haley. However, like teammate Carson Hocevar, Justin Haley was collected in the multi-car melee on lap 99 and finished 34th. -ZE
It's been a really rough start to the season for Brad Keselowski, and it continued with a 33rd-place finish at Phoenix thanks to a massive nine-car melee on Lap 99. Keselowski now has two DNFs this season, and just one top-15 finish through the opening four races. -TC
Austin Dillon had another sneaky good finish Sunday at Phoenix as he finished 12th. Had it not been for being obliterated by Denny Hamlin, who slipped in dirt on the track in Austin, TX, who knows where Dillon could be in these rankings, or the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings. -TC
A.J. Allmendinger struggled for pace throughout the day at Phoenix, finishing one lap down in 22nd. Fortunately, the series’ next stop, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is a track where Allmendinger has won twice in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and scored two top-10 finishes in the Cup Series. -ZE
Riley Herbst’s 17th-place finishing position streak ended early on Sunday, collected in the lap 99 multi-car incident and finishing 37th. -ZE
At this point last season, everybody was on the edge of their seats waiting for Ty Gibbs to break through with his first NASCAR Cup Series victory. One year later (and with a brand-new crew chief) something isn’t working, as Gibbs hasn’t scored a top 15 since last October. -JS
The transition into the NASCAR Cup Series has not been a kind one for 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Cole Custer, who is one of two full-timers that have yet to finish inside the top 20 (joining Cody Ware). Two wrecks ended the California-native’s afternoon after only 100 laps. -JS
He had a wheel break free from his car on pit road during Sunday's race, and he finished six laps off the pace. However, thanks to attrition, Cody Ware was able to nab a 24th-place finish at Phoenix, which is his best finish of the opening four races. Ware is close to leap-frogging a driver or two in the rankings. If he can have a decent run next weekend at Las Vegas, he may do just that. -TC
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.
-a54bf325b08a5e9f769b818f5c4a244c.png "Joseph Srigley")
Joseph Srigley covers NASCAR for TobyChristie.com, Racing America, and OnSI, and is the owner of the #SrigleyStats brand. With a higher education in the subjects of business, mathematics, and data analytics, Joseph is able to fully understand the inner workings of the sport through multiple points of perspective.
Zach Evans is the Managing Editor of RacingAmerica.com, with nearly a decade of experience in motorsports. He has been with Racing America since 2017.