NASCAR Power Rankings: Where Every Driver and Team Stands Before Daytona

While he didn't make it to the Championship 4 round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in 2024, there was no driver who accomplished more in the NASCAR Cup Series last year than Kyle Larson. He had more wins (6) than anyone, tied for the most top-fives (15), led 1,700 laps (most laps led in the Next Gen era), and nearly won the Regular Season title despite missing an entire race. Kyle Larson is number 1 on this list, and there shouldn't even be a debate.

-Toby Christie

2. Christopher Bell - No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing

Christopher Bell seems to get better and better with each season that passes. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has made the Championship 4 in two of the last three seasons, and last season, was one manipulated final lap at Martinsville away from another Final Four berth. Expect the No. 20 to return to Victory Lane and be in contention for the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series title.

-JS

3. Ryan Blaney - No. 12 Team Penske

Ryan Blaney has emerged as one of the top drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he seems poised to continue on that path in 2025. After winning the championship in 2023, Blaney came up just shy with a runner-up finish to his teammate Joey Logano in the Championship race last year. Blaney has erupted for six wins over the last two seasons (he had just seven wins over his first seven full-time seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series). Blaney is as dependable and fast as anyone in the series.

-TC

4. William Byron - No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports

William Byron found himself on the positive side of the drama stemming from last Fall’s cutoff race at Martinsville Speedway, giving him a second consecutive Championship 4 berth. While the 27-year-old hasn’t won in 28 races, the driver of the No. 24 is typically one of the first to find his footing when the new season begins – don’t expect that to change, either.

5. Tyler Reddick - No. 45 23XI Racing

Tyler Reddick continues to march forward in his NASCAR Cup Series career. Over the last three seasons, the 29-year-old has climbed from the 14th-place points ranking (2022) to sixth in 2023, and this past season he made his first appearance in the Cup Series Championship 4 (finished fourth). While it's not easy to repeat Championship 4 appearances, we feel the 2024 regular season champion will be in contention for pulling off the feat again this year.

-TC

6. Chase Elliott - No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports

Chase Elliott has had a trying last two seasons. Since returning to action after a snowboarding injury sustained in Spring 2023, the Dawsonville, Georgia-native has only collected a single NASCAR Cup Series victory and has since taken on the role of a quiet and consistent contender. Elliott should have no problems fighting for top fives, but his ability to fight for a second championship will likely depend on how often he can return to Victory Lane.

-JS

7. Denny Hamlin - No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing

At 44 years old, Denny Hamlin is still one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he's creeping close to the range where drivers historically have fallen off. In 2024, Hamlin's points ranking (8th) was his worst since an 11th-place points finish in 2018, and he'll head into 2025 with a new crew chief pairing in Chris Gayle. How Hamlin does this season will all depend on how well he and Gayle (two wins in 214 starts as a crew chief) mesh together.

-TC

8. Joey Logano - No. 22 Team Penske

The odds of Joey Logano winning the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series champion are low, simply because it’s an even-numbered year. Obviously, that’s not the most iron-clad reasoning. The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion had a stellar post-season, but his regular-season stats were underwhelming – and until his win at Nashville, the No. 22 was on the edge of not even making the Playoffs. If Logano and Paul Wolfe can have a better regular season, then maybe he’ll have a shot at a fourth championship... Afterall, Phoenix seems to be Team Penske’s playground.

-JS

9. Alex Bowman - No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports

After a rough 2023 season, where Alex Bowman missed three races due to injury, failed to win a race for the first time since 2018, and missed the Playoffs, the Hendrick Motorsports driver bounced back to win the Chicago Street Race to secure a Playoff berth in 2024. With unfounded rumors swirling all Playoffs about his future with Hendrick Motorsports, Bowman was able to mount a solid Playoff run, and had it not been for a post-race disqualification, he would have made it into the Round of 8 of the Playoffs. Rumors continue to swirl about Bowman, which should keep him motivated to prove folks wrong in 2025.

-TC

10. Chris Buescher - No. 17 RFK Racing

When it comes to performance, Chris Buescher has shown himself to be the leader at RFK Racing, collecting three victories during the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, and another last season, while also remaining one of the most consistent drivers in the series. Missing the playoffs definitely knocked the wind out of the No. 17 team’s sails, but the Prosper, Texas-native is destined to be a contender for victories this season, and should things go well, a deep run into the post-season.

-JS

11. Ty Gibbs - No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing

After two seasons of being tantalizingly close to securing his first NASCAR Cup Series win, it feels like Ty Gibbs has to break through in 2025. While the expectation isn't for rookies to win in the NASCAR Cup Series in modern times, most of the top-tier talents in today's NASCAR Cup Series finally unlocked the keys to victory lane in their third full-time season. Chase Elliott, William Byron, and Kyle Larson are just some of the current top-tier drivers, who won for the first time in their third full season. If Gibbs doesn't get it done this year, the question of if it will happen may start to creep in.

-TC

12. Ross Chastain - No. 1 Trackhouse Racing

Ross Chastain was another driver, much like Chris Buescher, who managed to win a NASCAR Cup Series post-season event despite not making the Playoffs, capturing a victory at Kansas. The Trackhouse Racing driver fell victim to inconsistency during the summer months, while drivers below the cutline kept winning races and moving the cutline. For this season, the key (other than winning a race, which he’s done every year with the NextGen car) is to stay consistent and avoid that mid-season slump that cost him a spot in the post-season last year.

-JS

13. Chase Briscoe - No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing

In a lame-duck season with Stewart-Haas Racing, Chase Briscoe won the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway to punch his ticket into the Playoffs. The expectation is that Briscoe will have a boosted level of performance as he moves to the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team in 2025. The upcoming season is a big one for Briscoe and the trajectory of his racing career, expect him to be ultra-motivated to turn in his best season to date.

-TC

14. Brad Keselowski - No. 6 RFK Racing

Brad Keselowski finally got the monkey off of his back last season, winning a NASCAR Cup Series event while driving under the RFK Racing banner. Now, the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion has his sights set on more as the season progresses. The Rochester Hills, Michigan-native will be working with a new crew chief, Jeremy Bullins, as the team tries to recover from what was a slight slip in performance at the end of last season.

-JS

15. Kyle Busch - No. 8 Richard Childress Racing

What a tale of two seasons it's been for Kyle Busch at Richard Childress Racing. After erupting for three wins with his new team in 2023, the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion failed to win a race for the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career in 2024. However, Busch was super close numerous times, and with RCR making a concerted effort to improve its competition department, it feels like Busch is destined to have a bounce-back season in 2025.

-TC

16. Carson Hocevar - No. 77 Spire Motorsports

Carson Hocevar surprised a lot of people with his commanding Rookie of The Year triumph over Josh Berry and Zane Smith, doing so with a career-best third at Watkins Glen and six finishes inside the top 10. With more experience under his belt, the sky is the limit for the Portage, Michigan-native, which could very well lead the No. 77 back to Victory Lane for the first time since Justin Haley won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona – in a shock triumph for Spire in their first season.

-JS

17. Shane van Gisbergen - No. 88 Trackhouse Racing

Sure, SVG gained valuable experience on NASCAR ovals during a full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series campaign with Kaulig Racing last season, but we have the NASCAR Cup Series Rookie Contender this high on our list solely due to his road racing skills. The New Zealand native picked up his first NASCAR Cup Series win in his debut start in the inaugural Chicago Street Race in 2023, and nearly won at Watkins Glen International last year before making an error on the final lap in a fevered battle with Chris Buescher.

-TC

18. Bubba Wallace - No. 23 23XI Racing

Bubba Wallace has spent all four of his seasons with 23XI Racing hovering around the cutline for the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. The Mobile, Alabama-native had a career-high six top-fives and 14 top-10s last season, but failed to make what was an extremely competitive post-season. A potential brightside for the No. 23 team? Charles Denike, who joins 23XI Racing from a stellar season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. While nothing is guaranteed, look for this younger crew chief to pump some life into the No. 23 in 2025.

-JS

19. Austin Cindric - No. 2 Team Penske

After making the Playoffs following a win in the Daytona 500 during his 2022 rookie season, Austin Cindric had a horrendous Sophomore campaign in 2023. However, he bounced back with an opportunistic win at Gateway, and overall better performance than he had shown over his first two seasons. Team Penske has won the last three championships with Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney leading the charge. If they can get Cindric in the championship picture, they’ll likely be unstoppable. While it personally feels like we’re a year or two away from Cindric hitting his full potential, the driver of the No. 2 showed great improvement in 2024.

-TC

20. Daniel Suarez - No. 99 Trackhouse Racing

Daniel Suarez broke into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs last season with an exciting three-wide photo finish victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The rest of the season though, was rather hit or miss. Trackhouse Racing as a whole is looking for pace heading into 2025, after teammate Ross Chastain missed the post-season. If they can find some, expect the No. 99 to be in the hunt for another post-season berth.

-JS

21. Todd Gilliland - No. 34 Front Row Motorsports

Over the last couple of years, Todd Gilliland has gone from the guy who lost out on starts with Front Row Motorsports to other drivers to now being the face of the organization’s NASCAR Cup Series program. With Michael McDowell leaving the team at the end of 2024, Gilliland is set to become the team’s marquee driver. In 2024, he tied his career-high in top-10s (4), and surpassed his career bests in laps led (130), points ranking (22nd), average start (22.1), and average finish (20.9). Gilliland should have an even better year in 2025.

-TC

22. Noah Gragson - No. 4 Front Row Motorsports

Noah Gragson finds himself with a fourth organization in four years in the NASCAR Cup Series, joining Front Row Motorsports to pilot the No. 4 Ford Mustang. The one positive note, though, is that despite the team change, he’ll be bringing crew chief Drew Blickensderfer and several members of the Stewart-Haas No. 10 team with him. Look for Gragson to pick up where he left off at the end of 2024. Who knows? Maybe a victory, or a post-season berth could be in the cards in 2025.

-JS

23. AJ Allmendinger - No. 16 Kaulig Racing

Much like SVG, AJ Allmendinger is this high up the list mainly due to his impeccable skills on road courses. However, Allmendinger flirted at points with a Playoff berth in his 2023 full-time campaign with Kaulig Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. After a season away from full-time status in Cup, can The Dinger return with a vengeance in 2025? That’s the hope, Kaulig Racing has not hidden how high they remain on Allmendinger’s raw talent.

-TC

24. Ryan Preece - No. 60 RFK Racing

Ryan Preece is entering the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign with, arguably, the best opportunity of his career, piloting a third entry for RFK Racing. With sponsorship influx and a solid three-driver lineup, the team is looking to improve upon its late-season slump in 2024. The Berlin, Connecticut native has some momentum of his own, too, scoring seven top-20s – three of which were top-10s – in the last 11 events of 2024. A new home, and a stable one at that, may be just what the doctor ordered for Preece.

-JS

25. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - No. 47 Hyak Motorsports

Seemingly always a threat to snag a Superspeedway win, Ricky Stenhouse has picked up a win in each of the last two seasons at drafting tracks. With his No. 47 team being rebranded to Hyak Motorsports in 2025, and the team no longer being associated with Kroger or former team owners Tad and Jodi Geshickter, this is a prove-it year for Stenhouse and his No. 47 group. Aside from his known prowess at Superspeedways, Stenhouse is underrated at places like Bristol, Dover, and Charlotte.

-TC

26. Justin Haley - No. 7 Spire Motorsports

Despite people’s initial impressions of the move, Justin Haley added quite a bit of value to his name after performing well in his 29-race stint for Rick Ware Racing, bringing the team a pair of top 10s on non-superspeedway oval. So, by joining Spire Motorsports, an up-and-coming organization, and working with Rodney Childers, championship-winning crew chief, the possibilities are limitless. The No. 7 team is one of the biggest unknowns heading into the season, with a new driver, new crew chief, and an improving organization in Spire Motorsports. So, who knows where Haley will really land…

-JS

27. Cole Custer - No. 41 Haas Factory Team

From the ashes of Stewart-Haas Racing, Haas Factory Team has risen. While it remains to be seen how competitive the team is out of the box, having Cole Custer behind the wheel of the No. 41 Ford is a solid decision as he has been one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Xfinity Series ranks over the last couple of seasons. Custer also has a NASCAR Cup Series win on his resume, which he achieved in thrilling fashion at Kentucky in 2020.

-TC

28. Zane Smith - No. 38 Front Row Motorsports

Zane Smith will perhaps be one of the most interesting drivers to keep an eye on throughout the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign. The Huntington Beach, California-native really began to find his footing in the second-half of the season after struggling to start the year with Spire Motorsports. Now, Smith returns to Front Row Motorsports to drive the No. 38 Ford Mustang. While the odds of the season ending like his first Truck campaign with FRM are pretty low, look for Smith to make some appearances inside the top-10, and maybe even the top-five, throughout the year.

-JS

29. Michael McDowell - No. 71 Spire Motorsports

After seven years of progression at Front Row Motorsports, Michael McDowell will travel to the great unknown in 2025 as the driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. Fortunately, the 2021 Daytona 500 champion, and two-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner, will have Travis Peterson, his crew chief from last season, along with him for the journey. The two paired to win the Indianapolis Road Course event in 2023 on their path to a Playoff berth and captured an impressive six pole positions in 2024. Now, they’ll try to replicate that success at Spire.

-TC

30. Erik Jones - No. 43 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

To put it quite frankly, last season wasn’t good for Erik Jones . The Byron, Michigan-native scored a career-low two top 10s, and was sidelined for two weeks after a massive crash at Talladega Superspeedway left him with a fractured vertebra. Jones managed to finish 28th in final point standings, but after a tumultuous first year for LEGACY MOTOR CLUB as part of Toyota, the team is looking for improvements. The good news? Clearly Maury Gallagher, Jimmie Johnson, and the entire team believe in him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been offered a mutli-year contract extension.

-JS

31. Riley Herbst - No. 35 23XI Racing

Riley Herbst is tired of people telling him that he isn’t talented enough, and after picking up three wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series over the last two seasons, he will move to the NASCAR Cup Series as the driver of the No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota. And Herbst does so with a chip on his shoulder. While 23XI Racing made it into the Championship 4 with Tyler Reddick in 2024, the team’s other driver, Bubba Wallace, failed to make the Playoffs. A Playoff appearance for Herbst in 2025 would be highly unexpected, not because he isn’t talented, but because he hasn’t been in the Next Gen car week-in and week-out since it was installed in the Cup Series in 2022.

-TC

32. Austin Dillon - No. 3 Richard Childress Racing

Even though Austin Dillon managed to win a NASCAR Cup Series event last season at Richmond Raceway (in an extremely controversial fashion), Richard Childress Racing as a whole spent the majority of the season struggling, resulting in neither one of the team's full-time drivers making the Playoffs. But, a new crew chief Richard Boswell (who won the Southern 500 with Chase Briscoe) has the entire team optimistic about the new season.

-JS

33. Josh Berry - No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing

While it could end up being a pairing that gels well together, a second-year driver moving to a team that struggled mightily in 2024 but was saved by a late-race charge at Daytona to make the Playoffs, doesn’t seem like the move that will go well, at least in their first season together. Josh Berry did have some flashes of brilliance during his rookie campaign with Stewart-Haas, but he also had one of the best crew chiefs in the sport – Rodney Childers – on the pit box. This year, Berry is paired with a virtual unknown in Miles Stanley where he and the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team will look to prove this ranking wrong.

-TC

34. John Hunter Nemechek - No. 42 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB

John Hunter Nemechek seemed to thrive when chaos arose in the NASCAR Cup Series last season. Three of his four top-10 finishes came in adverse situations, with a seventh in the Daytona 500 after being involved in an early wreck, a sixth at Bristol among strange tire wear, and an eighth at New Hampshire in the rain. With Travis Mack on the pit box for next season, and a whole bunch of competition staff changes, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB looks poised to find some improvements for the 2025 season.

-JS

35. Ty Dillon - No. 10 Kaulig Racing

There was a day and time when Ty Dillon was seen as a rising driver in the sport of NASCAR. Those days have come and gone, and he’s this low on the list due to his last two full-time NASCAR Cup opportunities (Petty GMS in 2022, and Spire Motorsports in 2023) resulting in 29th and 32nd-place finishes in the point standings, respectively. That being said, Kaulig Racing Team President Chris Rice has indicated that he and Kaulig Racing are motivated to prove that Ty Dillon still has the talent that saw him achieve solid results for the underdog Germain Racing team from 2017 to 2020.

-TC

36. Cody Ware - No. 51 Rick Ware Racing

Cody Ware returns to full-time competition in the NASCAR Cup Series for the first time since 2022, driving the No. 51 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. In one of the most competitive fields of all time, Ware and RWR are one of the few driver-team combinations that likely won’t be contending for a victory at any point in 2025. Ware comes off a part-time schedule that showed some promise, with a top-five result at Daytona, and a top-20 in the Brickyard 400.

-JS