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NASCAR power rankings: Denny Hamlin rises after dominant Martinsville performance
Denny Hamlin dominated Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville, leading 274 of 400 laps en route to his first win of the 2025 season. Here’s where the NASCAR Cup Series field stacks up following the first of two trips to the Paperclip.
1. Christopher Bell
After finishes of 12th at Las Vegas and 29th at Homestead, a pole position and a runner-up finish at Martinsville saw Bell and the No. 20 team return to form. Sunday’s second-place result gives Bell four top-two finishes in the first seven races of 2025, and while he’s only fourth in the standings, he’s been the fastest overall driver so far this season.
2. William Byron
For the first time all season, Byron failed to lead a single lap. Martinsville has been one of Byron’s best tracks in recent years, as he’s won twice at the half-mile since 2022. Sunday, however, was a struggle, yielding no stage points and only a 22nd-place finish. With that being said, there’s no reason for his fans to panic - the No. 24 will continue to be a weekly threat to win.
3. Kyle Larson
After picking up his first win of the season at Homestead on Mar. 23, Larson started fourth and finished fifth at Martinsville on Sunday. Larson has five top-10 finishes in the first seven races of 2025 and sits second in the standings as the circuit heads to Darlington - another track where Larson will likely be in the mix all afternoon.
4. Bubba Wallace
A crew chief change over the offseason has made all the difference for Wallace, who picked up his second consecutive third-place finish on Sunday. After a string of bad luck plagued the No. 23 team over the first few weeks of the season, Wallace has started to close out races over the past two weeks. He finds himself eighth in the standings and 60 points above the playoff cut line after Martinsville.
5. Alex Bowman
Bowman started Sunday’s race in third and finished second in Stage 1, but an unscheduled pit stop doomed any chance he had of earning a second grandfather clock on Sunday. A 27th-place finish isn’t at all indicative of the speed the No. 48 team has had early in the season, as Bowman sits fifth in the standings seven races in.
6. Denny Hamlin
Any rumors of Hamlin being washed up were greatly exaggerated. Hamlin put together a dominant performance on Sunday, leading 274 laps and winning Stage 2. After pulling away from Christopher Bell over the race’s final green flag run, he earned his first Martinsville win since 2015 and the 55th win of his Cup Series career. Like Larson, the next two races of Darlington and Bristol line up well for Hamlin.
7. Chase Elliott
Elliott put together his best overall performance of 2025 on Sunday, finishing fourth and earning 12 stage points. In a year of relatively lackluster speed for the No. 9 team, Martinsville may have been the medicine needed for Elliott to turn things around as he searches for his first win since Texas last April.
8. Tyler Reddick
Aside from a run-in with Ty Gibbs, Reddick’s day at Martinsville was a quiet one. A 14th-place finish is par for the course at Martinsville for Reddick, who is yet to figure out the half-mile short track. Darlington should see Reddick back in the mix, however, as the egg-shaped oval is much more conducive to Reddick’s driving style.
9. Ryan Blaney
Blaney was one of the favorites going into Sunday’s race, but you wouldn’t know it by the way his weekend went. After qualifying 32nd, Blaney was able to use strategy to gain some track position in Stage 1, but never had a good enough car to challenge the leaders. He came home 11th on a relatively disappointing day for the No. 12 team.
10. Ryan Preece
A seventh-place finish at Martinsville is the third consecutive top-10 finish for Preece, who has climbed to 14th in points. In their first year as a full-time car, the No. 60 team has had impressive speed and is beginning to put together finishes on a more consistent basis.
11. Chase Briscoe
A ninth-place finish marks consecutive top-10 finishes for Briscoe, who is starting to run where he was expected to when he signed with Joe Gibbs Racing. Briscoe sits 12th in points after Martinsville and will return to the site of his last win on April 6 when the Cup Series races at Darlington.
12. Joey Logano
It took seven races for Logano to earn his first top-10 finish of the season - the longest it’s ever taken a defending Cup champ to finish inside the top 10. Regardless, a Stage 1 win and subsequent eighth-place finish are great for Logano, who rose to ninth in the standings despite the lack of top-10 results.
13. Josh Berry
Berry and the No. 21 team played the strategy game to perfection in Stage 1 of Sunday’s race, but electrical issues doomed their day before Stage 1 was even over. After leading 40 laps, Berry’s Ford stalled on Lap 76, ending any chance he had of picking up another win. He ultimately finished 32nd, but the No. 21 team is still off to a solid start this season.
14. Ross Chastain
Chastain quietly plugged away on Sunday en route to a sixth-place finish. He now sits 13th in the standings with one of his best tracks in Darlington on deck. As the No. 1 team looks to get back into victory lane, races like Sunday are the building blocks for eventual winning performances.
15. Chris Buescher
It’s rare that Buescher isn’t in the mix for a top-10 finish at all these days, but that was the case at Martinsville. Finishes of 37th in Stage 1, 30th in Stage 2 and an eventual race finish of 24th told the story of Buescher’s worst overall performance this season. The good news? Buescher came oh-so-close to winning at Darlington in April of 2024, and he’ll have his chance at revenge on April 6.
16. Michael McDowell
McDowell’s sneakily consistent start to the season continued on Sunday with a 12th-place finish at Martinsville. The 2021 Daytona 500 winner is 15th in the standings after seven races, and it seems like the No. 71 team has begun to iron out the reliability issues that plagued them early in the season. McDowell has seemingly staked his claim as a playoff bubble contender this season - a welcome sight for an organization in Spire Motorsports that is continuing to work its way up the ladder.
More must-reads:
- Denny Hamlin puts on a clinic to win Cook Out 400 at Martinsville
- Toyota ends Hendrick Motorsports' recent dominance in Martinsville spring race
- The 'Most runs scored in an MLB season since 2000' quiz
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