Week 12 NASCAR power rankings: Kyle Larson distances himself with historic win

NASCAR Cup Series driver Kyle Larson (5) wins the Advent Health 400 at the Kansas Speedway.

Sunday’s Advent Health 400 at Kansas Speedway made history as the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history, with Kyle Larson beating Chris Buescher by 0.001 seconds.

Larson already led last week’s power rankings and naturally stays on top — and by a much greater margin than his Kansas victory. As the series heads to Darlington Raceway for Sunday’s Goodyear 400, who follows him?

1. Kyle Larson (Last week: 1)

Larson entered Sunday’s race as the Cup Series points leader and power rankings front-runner. He left Kansas still in possession of those accolades. Larson is red-hot, and he’ll look to stay that way in Darlington, where he won last fall.

2. Martin Truex Jr. (Last week: 3)

Lost in the excitement at the end of the thrilling Kansas finish was that Truex was chasing down Denny Hamlin in a hurry before a caution for Kyle Busch’s spin set up that final restart. He still finished fourth after taking four tires while most of the rest of the leaders took two, but ultimately this goes down as another race in 2024 that Truex could have — and probably should have — won had a few breaks gone his way.

3. Chase Elliott (Last week: 2)

Elliott continues his hyper-consistent performance in recent weeks, earning his sixth top-five finish in the past seven races (the superspeedway Talladega being the only exception) by coming home third. He might have won had the race been 100 yards longer after Larson and Chris Buescher repeatedly bounced off of each other coming to the line. He continues to re-establish himself in NASCAR’s top tier of weekly contenders.

4. Denny Hamlin (Last week: 4)

Hamlin led the most laps (71) at Kansas and was in front on the final restart but dropped to fifth as he was unable to score back-to-back wins. He looked to have faded out of contention after running up front early on, before a strategy call by crew chief Chris Gabehart paid off to put him back in the mix. Now he’ll head to one of his best tracks in Darlington, where he dominated last fall before a loose wheel spoiled his evening.

5. William Byron (Last week: 5)

Byron didn’t have an eventful race at Kansas, finishing 23rd, but he holds serve because no one below him did enough to jump into the top five. He was playing catch-up all race after his weekend got off to a rough start by hitting the wall during qualifying, so he’ll look to put this one behind him and bounce back at Darlington, where he won the spring race a year ago.

6. Kyle Busch (Last week: 10)

Busch has come back to life these past two weeks, following up his top five at Dover with a performance in which he was fast all race. He spun late in the going to set up the final restart and yet still came back to finish eighth. He has a strong record at Darlington (899 laps led) but only one win (2008). This weekend will be a solid test to see if the two-time Cup champion can keep up his momentum.

7. Ross Chastain (Last week: 12)

His 19th-place finish didn’t show it, but Chastain had one of his best races of 2024 at Kansas, starting on the outside pole and leading 43 laps as he dueled back and forth with Kyle Larson for much of the early going. He remained inside the top 10 throughout the duration of the race before the shuffle on the final restart dropped him back.

8. Alex Bowman (Last week: 7)

Bowman’s consistent form continues to see him climb in the points standings — he now sits ninth after his seventh-place finish at Kansas. Yet he’s still only led six laps this season, so it feels like something’s going to give sooner rather than later. Can Darlington finally be the week he competes for a win?

9. Chris Buescher (Last week: 15)

So close and yet so far for Buescher, who owns the unfortunate distinction as the driver to lose the closest finish in Cup Series history. Buescher initially was deemed the winner by the Fox Sports broadcast booth while his team celebrated atop the pit box, but ultimately he had to settle for second. On the plus side, he gained five spots in the standings and is now 11th.

10. Tyler Reddick (Last week: 6)

Reddick, who finished 20th Sunday, didn’t have the run he probably wanted after winning at Kansas last fall and contending on both of the previous 1.5-mile tracks (Las Vegas and Texas) in 2024. Darlington  should provide a solid opportunity for him to bounce back, though, as he ran second to Larson at the track last fall after leading 90 laps.

11. Ryan Blaney (Last week: 8)

It was not a great race for Blaney and his No. 12 team at Kansas and yet he was able to salvage a ninth-place finish. Still, his and Team Penske’s struggles recently are starting to become a concern, as they have simply lacked speed ever since the season’s opening month.

12. Ty Gibbs (Last week: 9)

Gibbs was up inside the top five for most of the early stages at Kansas, but he slipped to 32nd after making an unscheduled pit stop during the run just before the final caution. Closing out races continues to be a problem with Gibbs’ No. 54 team, but that’s to be expected with a young driver. The 21-year-old is still comfortably inside the playoffs, sitting eighth in points.

13. Noah Gragson (Last week: 14)

Gragson continues to be arguably the most surprising driver of 2024, as his ninth-place result at Kansas marks his fifth top-10 finish of the season in only 12 races (and third in a row). He’s still in must-win territory in terms of having a shot to make the playoffs, but the fact that he’s climbed to 19th in the standings after an early-season 35-point penalty is impressive.

14. Christopher Bell (Last week: not ranked)

Bell won the pole at Kansas and finished sixth, finally getting himself back on track after a miserable April. He’s known to put long stretches of consistent results together when he’s on his game, so perhaps Sunday could be the start of another one.

15. Brad Keselowski (Last week: NR)

Keselowski just missed out on a top-10 finish at Kansas (11th), and much like Truex, he was hurt by the timing of the final caution as he was rocketing up to the top five just before it. He remains squarely on the playoff bubble, currently holding the final spot by four markers over Bubba Wallace.

16. Joey Logano (Last week: 11)

Logano’s disappointing 2024 continued with a mediocre run at Kansas, lowlighted by a spin in which he fell multiple laps down after repairs. He has dropped back outside the playoff grid, and if he doesn’t make much noise next week, he might drop out of the power rankings again, too.

Dropped out: Chase Briscoe, Daniel Hemric

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