The first race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season kicks off Feb. 18. Here are the keys dates for the upcoming season.v
The NASCAR season just got weird.
Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney, two perennial title contenders, were poised for a duel over the final 30 laps to decide who would win at Gateway. But when Bell’s engine gave out and Blaney’s fuel tank dried up, Austin Cindric was left victorious in a stunning finish.
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Cindric, 25, won the Daytona 500 as a rookie in 2022 but has struggled throughout most of his 85 starts since then. Now, he’s heading back to the playoffs after scoring the first win of the season for Team Penske.
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Up next is the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. How does the field stack up heading into Wine Country? Here’s our latest NASCAR power rankings:
1. Denny Hamlin
Last week: 2
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The hottest driver in the series finally reclaims the No. 1 spot. Hamlin finished second at Gateway for his fifth straight top-five run. While he didn’t quite have race-winning speed like Bell, Blaney and Cindric, he was comfortably in that next tier of contenders.
2. Kyle Larson
Last week: 1
For the first time all season, Larson finished in the top-10 but not in the top-five. The 2021 champ was 10th at Gateway and, for the first time since March, did not score any stage points. Sonoma, Larson’s home track where he won in 2021, could be a bounce-back performance.
3. Brad Keselowski
Last week: 7
The only driver with as many top-fives as Hamlin this season? That would be Keselowski, who finished third on Sunday. After three straight top-fives, he’s now matched his total number of top-fives from last season (seven) in 21 fewer starts. Road courses like Sonoma, though, have been a struggle for Keselowski since joining RFK Racing in 2022 (20.6 average finish in 12 starts).
4. Tyler Reddick
Last week: 5
Reddick’s second straight fourth-place finish is enough to move him into the same spot in the power rankings. The 23XI Racing driver is currently on pace for a career-best season in top-fives, top-10s, average finish and laps led.
5. Chase Elliott
Last week: 4
In the early going, Elliott appeared to have as much speed as anyone outside of Bell. But contact with the wall and odd pit strategy subjected him back to a 13th-place run after scoring eight stage points. Elliott did, however, maintain his streak of finishing inside the top-20 of all 15 races this year – the only driver to do so.
6. William Byron
Last week: 3
Like his teammate Elliott, Byron showed signs of speed in the opening stages before fading to finish 15th. All eyes will be on Byron at Sonoma this week, though. He won the first road course race of the season in dominant fashion (42 of 68 laps led) after a similar performance at Watkins Glen last summer (66 of 90 laps led).
7. Christopher Bell
Last week: 10
Bell was oh-so-close to winning back-to-back races. He was far and away the fastest driver on Sunday, but Blaney held him up before his engine quit working. On the bright side, his slower pace in the final 20 laps only dropped him back to finish seventh. Things could have been much worse if the issue happened sooner.
8. Martin Truex Jr.
Last week: 6
The season has gone off the rails for Truex. He had a flat tire under green, which put him two laps down and took him out of contention. The No. 19 finished 34th, a third straight race outside the top-10. But if there’s any track where Truex can turn things around, it’s Sonoma. He’s a four-time winner in Northern California, including last year when he led nearly half of the race.
9. Ryan Blaney
Last week: First four out
The defending champion can’t catch a break this season. He lost by an inch in Atlanta, crashed out of the last two races and then unexpectedly ran out of fuel when he was poised to win Sunday. Blaney had every right to be upset after this one, considering his crew never told him he was in danger of running out of gas. As he said post-race, this loss will sting for a while.
10. Austin Cindric
Last week: Not ranked
Safe to say nobody saw this coming. In 14 starts this season prior to Sunday, Cindric managed one top-five, one top-10 and 11 finishes of 20th or worse. Then he led 53 laps at Gateway and was in position to finish third before the racing gods smiled upon him. This could legitimately be a career-saving win for Cindric.
First four out: Ty Gibbs, Joey Logano, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher
