NASCAR Playoff Power Rankings 2025: Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney tumble as the Vegas lights go out on playoff hopes

Denny Hamlin punched his ticket to the Championship 4 with his 60th career NASCAR Cup Series victory last Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. With two races remaining in Round of 8, the other seven NASCAR Cup playoff drivers will look to follow suit.

As the dust settles in Vegas, who's heading into Talladega feeling confident? Who has work to do to keep their championship hopes alive? Let's take a look in this week's NASCAR Power Rankings.

5. Chase Elliott

NASCAR: Cup Series-South Point 400 Practice and Qualifying - Source: Imagn

An uncontrolled tire on pit road in stage two doomed Chase Elliott's chances of cashing in big at Las Vegas. The driver of the #9 struggled to recover from the pit road penalty as he posted an 18th-place finish. With a 23-point deficit to the cut line, the Hendrick Motorsports star has work to do in the next two races.

Luckily for Elliott, the upcoming tracks have been ones where he'd found success. Elliott is a two-time Talladega winner and won the playoff race at the 2.66-mile track in 2022. The Georgia native won the 2020 playoff race at Martinsville, which ultimately led him to winning the championship the next week at Phoenix.

4. Ryan Blaney

It didn't take long for Ryan Blaney's hopes of winning at Las Vegas to go up in smoke. In the early laps of Sunday's 267-lap event, the driver of the #12 suffered a tire failure and smacked his car into the outside wall in turns three and four. The crash took the 2023 Cup champion out of the race, resulting in a last-place finish.

The catastrophic result has Blaney last in the playoff standings, 31 points below the cutoff. Fortunately for the Team Penske star, Talladega and Martinsville are two of his best tracks. Blaney is a three-time Talladega winner with victories in the 2019 and 2023 playoff races. The North Carolina native has also won the last two Martinsville playoff races to secure a spot in the Championship 4.

3. Christopher Bell

With a strong run at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell helped up his chances of advancing to the Championship 4 race. The driver of the #20 totaled nine stage points and posted a third-place finish when the checkered flag threw. With two races left in the Round of 8, Bell holds a 20-point advantage over the cut line.

Talladega might be the Achilles heel for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Bell has finished outside the top 30 in two of the last three Talladega races, yet finished sixth in the playoff race a year ago. At Martinsville, Bell has one victory, which came in the 2022 playoff race that clinched his first Championship 4 appearance.

2. Kyle Larson

Kyle Larson narrowly missed out on victory Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The driver of the #5 led a race-high 129 of 267 laps and won the second stage, but wound up finishing runner-up to Denny Hamlin in the end. Despite falling short of the win, Larson now has a 35-point advantage over the cut line.

With two races remaining in the Round of 8, the Hendrick Motorsports star has a solid points cushion to advance. Larson has improved on the drafting tracks in recent memory and has finished top five in the last two Talladega races. The 2021 Cup champion has finished no worse than sixth in the last six Martinsville races, including a win in 2023.

1. Denny Hamlin

It was a triumphant day at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Denny Hamlin. The driver of the #11 passed Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe in the closing laps to seal the deal on his 60th career NASCAR Cup Series victory and sixth win of 2025. The win secured his spot in the Championship 4 for the first time since 2021.

Hamlin is now one step closer to capture an elusive first NASCAR Cup Series championship. With two races remaining in the Round of 8, however, the 44-year-old is still a threat. Hamlin is a two-time Talladega winner, with his latest win coming in the 2020 playoff race. At Martinsville, Hamlin is a six-time winner, which includes the latest race at the 0.5-mile track in March.

About the author

John Breeden is a NASCAR content writer at Sportskeeda with over four years of sports journalism experience. His career began back in 2021, when he started writing for The Breeze - a student-run publication at James Madison University that covered a wide variety of JMU collegiate sports. He graduated from JMU in May 2022 with a degree in media arts and design concentrating in journalism. He currently writes for his local publication, the Daily News-Record, in Harrisonburg, VA, where he covers a variety of sports at the high school and collegiate level.

John has been a lifelong NASCAR fan and has followed the sport closely since 2005. He stays informed on motorsports developments through social media, NASCAR.com, and NASCAR podcasts, which help him craft unique and engaging stories. Interviewing Hendrick Motorsports Vice Chairman Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway was a career highlight for John, where he wrote about William Byron taking the famed No. 24 car back to the Championship 4.

Beyond motorsports, John enjoys writing about other sports such as football, baseball, and basketball. He believes that NASCAR could reach the global popularity of Formula 1 by expanding its audience with more international races and enhancing its mainstream appeal, just like F1 has done.

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Edited by John Breeden