All three Penske drivers are now together just outside of the top 10
By Steven Taranto
• 8 min read
Over the last two and a half years since the start of the 2022 season, Team Penske's list of accomplishments includes the last two Cup Series championships with Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney as well as the 2022 Daytona 500 with Austin Cindric. It shouldn't be easy to forget that -- but sometimes, it feels like it is.
Amid their success over the start of NASCAR's Next Gen era, the Penske cars have alternated between hot streaks of peak performance -- usually coming at just the right time -- and stretches where they can't seem to compete or have any of the raw speed that they need. Even this year, Team Penske's performance on downforce tracks has left much to be desired. But they seem to have the smaller tracks more than figured out, as the past three weeks have shown.
After Joey Logano won the All-Star Race in North Wilkesboro in dominating fashion, Sunday's race at Gateway looked set to be a Penske 1-2 finish before a stunning turn of events coming to the white flag, when Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel to give the lead and win to Austin Cindric. Logano, Cindric and Blaney are now all in a group together just outside the top 10 of the CBS Sports NASCAR Power Rankings, sitting 11th-13th following their performance at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Here's a look at CBS Sports' updated NASCAR Power Rankings following Gateway:
| Rank | Driver | Change | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denny Hamlin | -- | Dating back to his win at Dover, Denny Hamlin has been on a stretch of five top-10 finishes in a row. Of the eight top-10 finishes he's had during the 2024 season, seven of them have been top fives as well. | |
| 2 | Brad Keselowski | -- | RFK Racing had finished first or second in five of six races entering Gateway, but that streak is now five of seven after neither of their cars finished in the top two. Granted, Brad Keselowski wasn't that far off as he finished third. | |
| 3 | Tyler Reddick | Tyler Reddick's second-straight fourth-place finish gave him his sixth top five on the season, putting him more than halfway toward breaking his career-high mark. Reddick has had 10 top-five finishes in each of the past two seasons. | ||
| 4 | Chase Elliott | When the Next Gen car was first introduced in 2022, an early issue that popped up was how easy it was to break a toe link if a car bounced off the wall. It speaks to how nicely the development of the car has come along that Chase Elliott knocked the toe out after getting into the wall on a restart, but still ran in the top 10 and eventually finished 13th. | ||
| 5 | Christopher Bell | NASCAR engines these days are so well-developed and well-engineered that it's very rare to see one of them fail, much less break outright, in the closing laps. We'll see what the problem with Christopher Bell ended up being, but the early theory seems to be that the amount of shifting and transmission work Bell was doing had some sort of ill effect. | ||
| 6 | Ross Chastain | Ross Chastain will be a driver worthy of watching at Sonoma. Not only did his first career win come on a road course at COTA in 2022, but he was also one of the drivers that tested at the newly-repaved Sonoma in March. | ||
| 7 | Ty Gibbs | On the subject of contenders at Sonoma, you should absolutely include Ty Gibbs in that category. His road racing abilities shone through at COTA, where he qualified on the outside pole and eventually ran third. | ||
| 8 | Chris Buescher | Austin Cindric's Gateway win puts pressure on drivers around the playoff cut line to get to Victory Lane, as Cindric went from not really being in the picture to now on the playoff grid. Those two near misses Chris Buescher had at Kansas and Darlington now surely sting way more. | ||
| 9 | William Byron | -- | I wish Valvoline paint schemes in this day and age didn't change so frequently, as I feel like the one William Byron ran at Gateway would have looked great for a full season on Mark Martin's car way back when. Byron ran 15th with the sponsor Martin had for so many years in the 1990s. | |
| 10 | Kyle Larson | We'll see what the official reason is for why Kyle Larson was not credited with any playoff points following Gateway, but the longer the matter of his playoff waiver drags on, the more people have wondered exactly why. Larson offered a theory of his own on FS1's pre-race show, suggesting NASCAR actually may have to re-write the waiver rule if they elect to grant him a waiver for his circ*mstances. | ||
| 11 | Joey Logano | An after-effect of Austin Cindric's win on the playoff cut line: Joey Logano is now two spots below the cut line, some 14 points back of Chris Buescher for the current last available spot on points. | ||
| 12 | Austin Cindric | Isn't there something that feels so right about the No. 2 car going to Victory Lane in Rusty Wallace's hometown? Wallace, the longtime pilot of the car Cindric now calls his own, is a native of the St. Louis area. | ||
| 13 | Ryan Blaney | On the subject of the cut line, about a lap and a couple of drops of fuel separated Ryan Blaney from virtually certain to defend his Cup championship to still having to get away from the bubble. He's currently 12th in points, just 37 points clear of Chris Buescher. | ||
| 14 | Bubba Wallace | Bubba Wallace was unable to sustain his speed from qualifying, fading from the eighth starting spot to 21st at the checkered flag. That marks Wallace's worst finish in any race he's been running at the end of since he ran 29th at Bristol in March. | ||
| 15 | Michael McDowell | Michael McDowell led 40 laps from the pole at Gateway after setting a new track record in qualifying. He's got a chance at Sonoma to lead just as many if not more, as road courses are among McDowell's greatest opportunities to get a win and make the playoffs for the third time in the last four seasons. | ||
| 16 | Martin Truex Jr. | Martin Truex Jr. represented Toyota at the Sonoma tire test in March, and the rest of the field probably wishes he hadn't. Truex has four career Sonoma wins, three of which have come in the track's last five races dating back to 2018. | ||
| 17 | Todd Gilliland | Todd Gilliland stands to become the team leader on what will be a three-car team at Front Row Motorsports next year. His dad, David Gilliland, was part of FRM's previous attempts at three full-time cars, namely after they rapidly expanded following a move to Ford in 2010. | ||
| 18 | Josh Berry | As he now looks for a ride for next season, Josh Berry will be tasked in June with distinguishing himself in SHR equipment while also keeping close to his roots as a short track racer. Before the Cup race weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, Berry will drive a late model for Dylan Fetcho in the Battle of Broadway 150 at Nashville Fairgrounds. | ||
| 19 | Justin Haley | Justin Haley has a multi-year contract to drive for Rick Ware Racing. But if he keeps delivering top-10 finishes like he did at Gateway, Haley is going to be in demand with larger teams as Stewart-Haas Racing's charters get divvied out. Something for both RWR and Ford to consider. | ||
| 20 | Carson Hocevar | Carson Hocevar has enjoyed a strange history at Gateway. He broke his ankle in a crash there during a Truck Series race in 2022, made his Cup debut there in 2023, and WWT Raceway is now the site of Hocevar's best career finish in a Cup car. | ||
| 21 | Chase Briscoe | As the first driver below the playoff cut line, a trip to Sonoma doesn't really help Chase Briscoe. He's never finished better than 13th there in three Cup starts and ran 29th last year. | ||
| 22 | Alex Bowman | Alex Bowman had an uncharacteristically poor run at Gateway, as brake issues plagued the No. 48 Chevrolet. Bowman's 28th-place finish was his worst in any race this season where he's been running at the finish. | ||
| 23 | Noah Gragson | To find the last time Noah Gragson raced at Sonoma, you have to go all the way back to when he was racing in what is now the ARCA Menards Series West. Gragson has three West Series starts at Sonoma, winning there in 2019. | ||
| 24 | Kyle Busch | After his crash at Gateway, Kyle Busch now finds himself beneath the playoff cut line and looking to get in. Busch hasn't missed the postseason since 2012 and has never missed the playoffs since the current format was introduced in 2014. | ||
| 25 | Daniel Suarez | With two laps to go at Gateway, it seemed very odd as to why Daniel Suarez passed leader Ryan Blaney to get back on the lead lap as Blaney was trying to hang on for the victory. About a hundred yards later, as Blaney ran out of fuel, everything seemed to make sense at once. | ||
| 26 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | -- | In more than a decade at the Cup Series level, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has never had a single top-10 finish at Sonoma. In fact, a 12th-place finish there a year ago actually marked the first top 15 he'd ever scored there. | |
| 27 | Daniel Hemric | Credit to Daniel Hemric and his team for the way they persevered at Gateway. Hemric was running dead last early in the race, but wound up working his way up through the field to 18th by race's end. | ||
| 28 | Erik Jones | Legacy Motor Club's move to Toyota still has yet to pay dividends for the team in terms of consistent performance. Their two cars finished right together toward the back of the pack with Erik Jones in 26th and John Hunter Nemechek in 27th. | ||
| 29 | Corey LaJoie | Despite being the designated team leader at Spire Motorsports, Corey LaJoie has taken a backseat to his younger teammates as the season has gone on. LaJoie finished 32nd at Gateway, well behind both of his teammates Carson Hocevar and Zane Smith. | ||
| 30 | Zane Smith | Speaking of Zane Smith, he earns a spot at the tail end of the Power Rankings this week. A 19th-place finish at Gateway marked just the third top-20 finish he's had all season and his first since COTA in March. |
See Also
Austin Cindric gives Team Penske its first NASCAR win and some much-needed momentumCindric mentality for NASCAR win after 85 races without victory says it allBlaney, Bell fight the NASCAR battle, Cindric wins the war; McDowell calls Larson wavier woes, 'crazy'Austin Cindric gives incredibly honest answer to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on challenge of NextGen carOur Latest Nascar Stories
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