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Power Ranking the Drivers After 2nd Month of NASCAR Season
Joe MenzerApr 27, 2016
Nine down...a long way still to go.
Nonetheless, with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season now officially one-quarter completed, a clearer picture is beginning to emerge of which drivers and their teams are most likely to battle for the championship come November.
The last four races have been won by Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, with Kyle Busch winning back-to-back at Martinsville and Texas, while Carl Edwards took the last two on the short tracks of Bristol and Richmond. Throw in Denny Hamlin's victory in the season-opening Daytona 500, and JGR Toyotas have captured five of the first nine races.
About the only bump in the road so far for JGR came when Edwards applied the bump-and-run technique to nudge Busch out of the way and take the win at Richmond. Teammates don't often do that sort of thing to each other, but Edwards was not apologetic about it, noting that because of their earlier wins, Edwards and Busch already had clinched spots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup that will determine the season's champion over the final 10 races of the season.
"We've both got wins so we're both in (the Chase), so we're racing for fun and getting these trophies," Edwards told Fox Sports. "It was just an awesome day."
It's been an awesome season so far for Edwards and at least three-fourths of the JGR driver stable. See where they and others rank at the two-month mark of the marathon season.
10. Martin Truex Jr.
1 of 10
Previous ranking: Not ranked
Why he's here: After making the Championship 4 last year, when he and three others raced each other for the title in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Truex nearly won this year's Daytona 500 and then slumped a little before recently showing signs that he, too, is benefiting from a close technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing after switching from driving a Chevrolet to a Toyota for Furniture Row Racing this season.
Key 2016 moments: After finishing a tantalizingly close second in the Daytona 500 and seventh in the second race of the season at Atlanta, Truex failed to crack the top 10 for the next four races. He seemed to turn it around in Texas, where he started third and led 141 laps before a bad pit call forced him to settle for a sixth-place finish in a race he seemingly could have won.
Bottom line, he and crew chief Cole Pearn are beginning to show signs of getting back to the same kind of consistency that permitted them to contend for the championship last season.
What's next: Out of a combined 78 career starts at the next four tracks the Cup Series will visit (Talladega, Kansas, Dover and Charlotte), Truex has only one win at Dover, which the New Jersey native considers his home track and one of his best.
So that's where he's most likely to challenge for a win over the next month, as he's led a total of 358 laps there. The only track where he has led more in his career is Texas Motor Speedway.
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2 of 10
Previous ranking: 9
Why he's here: He's already finished second three times—at Atlanta, Texas and Bristol. So he's getting closer to winning, plus he's been consistent enough to move up to seventh in the points despite leading a total of just 49 laps—34 of which came at Phoenix when he finished fifth.
Key 2016 moments: Earnhardt Jr. is one of just five drivers with four or more top-five finishes so far. The other four have all won races, however. Runner-up finishes in one-third of the races is indicative of a team that is on the right track. His only really poor run of the year came when he crashed out in the Daytona 500 and was forced to settle for a 36th-place finish in his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
What's next: 'Dega is next, and everyone knows what that means to Earnhardt. He won there last spring for his sixth career win at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, and he'll be a threat to contend again.
In a combined 83 career starts at Kansas, Dover and Charlotte, however, his lone win came at Dover early in his Cup career in 2001.
8. Brad Keselowski
3 of 10
Previous ranking: 5
Why he's here: Despite being one of just six drivers to win a race and lock himself into the Chase playoffs, it hasn't been a particularly stellar start to the year for the 2012 Sprint Cup champ. He's led a total of just 31 laps and has only one other top-five finish in addition to his win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Key 2016 moments: He led 24 laps at Vegas and led one lap at Daytona, fittingly winning in Vegas by gambling on fuel at the end. But the only other race in which he has led any laps at all was at Richmond, where he led only six and finished a so-so 11th. That seems to indicate that his No. 2 Team Penske Ford has been lacking in speed compared to other top title contenders.
He also finished fifth at Martinsville and has a pair of ninth-place finishes at Atlanta and Fontana. But he followed up his promising run at Martinsville with back-to-back 18th-place finishes at Texas and Bristol, respectively—both bitterly disappointing.
What's next: This is a promising string of tracks coming up for Keselowski. He's won at least once at each of the next four, including three times at Talladega—where in 14 career starts, he's finished in the top five on five occasions and in the top 10 on eight.
This stretch should tell us a whole lot about whether or not BK and crew chief Paul Wolfe are going to be able to turn the corner and truly run with the big dogs this season.
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7. Joey Logano
4 of 10
Previous ranking: 7
Why he's here: Logano is fifth in points and has finished eighth or better in five of the nine races. But he has yet to win and hasn't led a whole lot of laps, despite being more consistent overall than Keselowski, his teammate at Team Penske.
Key 2016 moments: The good news? Logano has this qualifying stuff down. He won the pole at Martinsville and qualified second at Las Vegas, Texas and Richmond, third at Bristol and fifth at Daytona.
The bad news? His finishes haven't quite matched his fantastic starting positions. His best finishes are second at Las Vegas behind his teammate and third at Texas—but he's been able to finish better than where he started in only two of the nine starts. That means crew chief Todd Gordon is finding speed in the No. 22 Ford in qualifying trim, but he's having trouble making the necessary adjustments during races to find that little bit extra required to get to Victory Lane.
What's next: Of the next four Sprint Cup stops, the only track where Logano has not yet won in his career is Dover. He's won once apiece at Talladega and Charlotte, and twice at Kansas. He is likely to run up front and challenge for the win in any one of those three places.
6. Kurt Busch
5 of 10
Previous ranking: 8
Why he's here: Kurt is sitting sixth in points, and his total of 189 laps led also ranks sixth. He has seven top-10 finishes in the nine starts but only a pair of top-fives.
Key 2016 moments: Busch's best finish was third at Bristol, which should come as no surprise because he's frequently a contender or winner there. He's also earned two poles, but his only other top-five run came at Atlanta when he finished fourth.
Otherwise, he's been fairly consistent with a 10th at Daytona, ninth at Las Vegas and sixth at Phoenix in addition to the strong run at Atlanta, where he led 62 laps. He also led 41 laps at Bristol, 55 before finishing 10th at Richmond and 31 at Vegas. His only really poor finish came at Fontana, where he qualified poorly (26th) and never was a factor on the day when he ended up finishing 30th.
What's next: He hasn't won at either Talladega or Kansas, but he owns one win each at Dover and Charlotte. The chemistry between the elder racing Busch brother and his old-school crew chief, Tony Gibson, is still solid and should produce a win or two sooner rather than later.
5. Denny Hamlin
6 of 10
Previous ranking: 3
Why he's here: Hamlin began the season by showing serious speed in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota during Daytona Speedweeks. But he's been struggling in most of the races since then, with the notable exception of back-to-back third-place finishes at Phoenix and Fontana.
Key 2016 moments: Short of winning a championship, nothing else he does this season will top winning the Daytona 500. He led 95 of the 200 laps en route to that victory. He was in position to win again at Fontana, as he led the field to green on the final restart before falling back to third behind race winner Johnson and runner-up Kevin Harvick.
But he made what he called "a rookie mistake" that caused him to crash out and finish 39th at Martinsville, which is one of his favorite tracks. Until scoring a sixth at Richmond in his last outing, he had uncharacteristically gone nearly a month without a top-10 finish.
What's next: Hamlin's Daytona 500 win in his first race with new crew chief Mike Wheeler masked the fact that the two face some Sprint Cup growing pains together, despite the fact that they've worked together before in lower series and in six races last season when then-Hamlin crew chief Darian Grubb served a suspension.
It could take some time, although Hamlin said before the season that he was certain Wheeler was the right Cup crew chief match for him after changing up three times in as many seasons. "He's been with me in some capacity throughout my career, so he's my guy," Hamlin told NASCAR.com. "He's going to be my guy until I retire, there's no doubt about that."
4. Kevin Harvick
7 of 10
Previous ranking: 2
Why he's here: Harvick leads so many laps and racks up so many top-five finishes that the only thing that always seems surprising is that he and crew chief Rodney Childers don't win more races. It's kind of the opposite of earlier in his career when Harvick was considered a closer who frequently won when he led only a handful of laps at the end.
Key 2016 moments: His one win came at Phoenix, which was no surprise because he's now won five of the last six races run at the one-mile track. But that's just one of three races in which he's led 131 laps or more, with the others being Atlanta (131) and Fontana (142). He also led 72 at Martinsville before fading to a disappointing 17th at the end, and he led 63 after starting from the pole before finishing fifth at Richmond.
He finished second at Fontana when Johnson passed him on the final green-white-checkered restart, which was a bitter way to end a race he had pretty much dominated. But the fact is, he has finished no worse than seventh in all but two starts this season, and his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevy has consistently been the fastest in the series over the last two years. He and Childers just need to start finding ways to finish the deal more often at the end.
What's next: Harvick has won once each at Talladega, Kansas and Dover, and he's won three times in his career at Charlotte. His next win (or even wins, as in plural) could be coming very soon.
3. Jimmie Johnson
8 of 10
Previous ranking: 1
Why he's here: Johnson is third in points and the only non-JGR driver to have scored two wins this season. Make no mistake: He and his team remain extremely formidable.
Key 2016 moments: Johnson's roll to victory in a car featuring a Superman paint scheme at Fontana was, well, super as well as a little unexpected on a day when Harvick's machine appeared to have the superior speed. But that's typical of Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus—making the most out of what they have and sometimes even a little more. No one does that better than the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team.
Johnson's other win came at Atlanta, but after starting off the season with two wins and a third in the first five races, the No. 48 crew has cooled off considerably. He failed to lead a single lap and finished a disappointing (for him) ninth at Martinsville, a track where in the past he's dominated. He also struggled to a 23rd-place finish at Bristol, but he did bounce back to lead 44 laps and finish third at Richmond.
What's next: Despite the recent cooling-off period, there is no need for anyone to worry about the prowess of the Johnson-Knaus duo that is chasing what would be a record-tying seventh championship together.
The bottom line is that he, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch are the only drivers with five or more top-five finishes so far this season. Plus, Johnson has racked up the remarkable combined total of 22 victories in his career at the next four tracks he'll visit.
2. Kyle Busch
9 of 10
Previous ranking: 4
Why he's here: The younger of the two racing Busch brothers was one turn away on the final lap of the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond from being the clear-cut No. 1 on this list.
But then Edwards, his JGR teammate, executed a perfect bump-and-run move to steal the victory. That leaves Busch with two victories on the season—the same as Edwards and Jimmie Johnson.
Key 2016 moments: He won the back-to-back races at Martinsville and at Texas, but then came a disastrous (and totally uncharacteristic) 38th-place finish after wrecking at Bristol. That led Busch to tell Bob Pockrass of ESPN that he's "sick and tired" of the place where he won five times before the track altered its banking.
Then came the eventful last lap at Richmond, after Busch had led a total of 78 laps on the day and appeared to be cruising toward his third win in four races. Busch took the high road afterward, offering bland answers to questions about how he felt about his teammate nudging him out of the way for the win.
That led Fox Sports columnist Tom Jensen to write, accurately, that "sometimes what an athlete doesn't say is every bit as telling as what he or she does say. Such was the case with Kyle Busch after Sunday's Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway."
What's next: It's time for Busch and crew chief Adam Stevens to regroup, and there is no doubt they will. The way Busch handled his post-race interviews after what happened at Richmond actually showed signs of maturity that would have eluded him many times in the past.
Busch knows his No. 18 JGR Toyota is fast every week, as evidence by the total of 598 laps he's led thus far that is second only to Edwards' 626. This next stretch of tracks hasn't been his best over the years, however. Surprisingly, he's never won at Kansas and Charlotte in 40 combined starts. He has won at Talladega once in 21 starts and twice at Dover in 22 tries, and he has the same number of top-five finishes there (10) as he's had at Charlotte.
1. Carl Edwards
10 of 10
Previous ranking: 6
Why he's here: While he's won the same number of races now as both Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson, Edwards has led more laps than either of those drivers. His total of 626 laps led, bolstered by the 151 he led at Richmond, is in fact the most of any driver in Sprint Cup. He also has five top-five and eight top-10 finishes over the first nine races, so the consistency has been there, too.
Key 2016 moments: Obviously the last two races have been magical for Edwards and new crew chief Dave Rogers, who previously sat atop the pit boxes of both Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin at JGR. Rogers' low-key temperament and clinical approach to races seem to suit Edwards, who possesses similar qualities.
As for bumping his teammate out of the way to win at Richmond, Edwards was unapologetic and told Tom Jensen of Fox Sports: "If the roles were reversed, I'd expect him to bump me the same way. That's hard racing."
What's next: The mettle of Edwards' No. 19 JGR team will be tested over the next month. Not only will driver and team have to make sure they can still work efficiently with Busch and his No. 18 JGR team for the betterment of both, but what lies immediately ahead is a stretch of tracks that hasn't agreed too favorably with Edwards in the past.
He's never won in 40 combined career starts at Talladega and Kansas—the next two venues. And he's won only once each at Dover and Charlotte, which are the two after that.
Joe Menzer covers NASCAR as a Digital Content Producer for FoxSports.com and writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report. He also hosts a weekly radio show on ESPN 730 AM in Charlotte, North Carolina, and you can follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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