SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s Power Rankings

Pete Pistone will unveil Power Rankings each week of the NASCAR season. Check out this week’s edition of NASCAR Power Rankings below, and listen to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) on the SXM App now.

The first road course race of the season turned into a slam bang affair Sunday at COTA. Here’s a look at the Power Rankings after a visit to Austin:

1. Ross Chastain

The Trackhouse Racing driver scored his first Cup Series win in start number 121 Sunday at COTA. Chastain led four times for 31 laps but had to fend off a frantic charge in overtime to score the victory. Chastain is the third first-time winner in the season’s opening six races, tying the mark set in 2001.

Driver Rating: 94.5
Point Standings: 5th
Last Week: 2nd

2. Chase Elliott

Last year’s COTA race winner had all sorts of challenges Sunday but somehow came back to finish fourth, Elliott’s first top-five finish of the 2022 campaign.

Driver Rating: 93.8
Point Standings: 1st
Last Week: 1st

3. Alex Bowman

He was in the thick of things both in Saturday’s Camping World Truck Series race as well as Sunday’s Cup main event. Bowman came up short both times of Victory Lane but his second place run was his best career road course finish and his second top-five outing of the year.

Driver Rating: 90.9
Point Standings: 4th
Last Week: 4th

4. William Byron

The Hendrick Motorsports driver had a difficult follow-up performance to his Atlanta win the week before. Byron had an okay but not great finish of 12th on Sunday.

Driver Rating: 95.0
Point Standings: 6th
Last Week: 3rd

5. Tyler Reddick

A fifth-place run that Reddick felt could have been more summed up his COTA day. Reddick has finished in the top-10 in three of the last four races of the 2022 season.

Driver Rating: 94.2
Point Standings: 10th
Last Week: 10th

6. Chase Briscoe 

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver was among the lead pack and led for a couple of laps. But he was forced off course, dodged a penalty and then a flat tire ended any chance of finishing better than 30th at COTA.

Driver Ratings: 82.2
Point Standings: 9th
Last Week: 6th

7. Kyle Larson

A very uncharacteristic string of races for Larson rolled on at COTA as the defending series champion had one thing after another come his way adding up to finish just 29th on Sunday.

Driver Rating: 85.5
Point Standings: 16th
Last Week: 5th

8. Ryan Blaney

He started the race from the pole and had one of the fastest cars on track. But Blaney was put into the position of making a comeback and had to driver for all his worth to cross the finish line sixth on Sunday at COTA.

Driver Rating: 104.9
Point Standings: 2nd
Last Week: NR

9. Austin Cindric

The road racing prowess of Cindric came in handy on Sunday as the Team Penske driver was forced to rebound from a number of challenges including a spin out to put a top-10 performance on the board.

Driver Rating: 86.1
Point Standings: 12th
Last Week: NR

10. Kyle Busch

The season of frustration continued for Busch who had a fast car but there were too many obstacles in his way and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver left COTA with a disappointing 28th place finish.

Driver Rating: 81.0
Point Standings: 11th
Last Week: 8th

Dropped Out: Kurt Busch, Joey Logano