A look at the weekly NASCAR power rankings and stock watch heading into the race at Pocono, including Erik Jones and William Byron.
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The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Pocono Raceway this coming weekend for the Great American Getaway 400. Denny Hamlin’s dominant back-to-back victories have reset the conversation around the championship picture, and the momentum swings from Michigan make this one of the more compelling weeks of the season to take stock of where teams stand.
From an underrated driver stacking quality results to a manufacturer that can’t seem to find its footing, here are the drivers and teams trending up and down in the NASCAR power rankings heading into Pocono.
📈 Stock Up | NASCAR Power Rankings for Pocono
Denny Hamlin
Low-hanging fruit for a column of this nature — but Denny Hamlin is arguably in another zip code from the rest of the field right now. Timing and scoring reflected that sentiment perfectly at Michigan. Once he secured the lead off what proved to be the final restart, the race was never in doubt. Hamlin pulled away to win by more than 11 seconds — a margin of victory that is practically unheard of in the parity-driven world of modern NASCAR.
It also marked the second consecutive week that the No. 11 had to come from the back of the field to win. The dominance figures to carry over at Pocono, where Hamlin has a win and two runner-ups in the last three races. He has won three times in the last nine Cup Series starts at the Tricky Triangle with only two finishes worse than fourth over that span. Hamlin will be the betting favorite and the highest-priced DFS play — and yet he will be near impossible to fade.
Along with inflating Hamlin’s status in the NASCAR power rankings, the Michigan result also shook up the championship picture. Tyler Reddick’s first DNF of the season combined with Hamlin’s win has closed the points gap to just 51. What once looked like an insurmountable lead for the No. 45 suddenly doesn’t feel that way anymore.
Legacy Motor Club
Erik Jones has been a staple of our betting props column for several weeks running, and the No. 43 delivered again at Michigan with his best finish of the season. Jones was phenomenal on the long runs — a race state that didn’t unfold as frequently as expected given Michigan’s high caution count. When the final extended green flag run arrived, Jones made his move, working from the back half of the top 10 all the way to a runner-up finish.
The result continues a strong stretch for the team that has them surging in the NASCAR power rankings. Over the last four oval races, Jones has posted finishes of 12th, third at the All-Star Race, 13th, and 11th — and a strong argument can be made that several of those should have been even better. He is now firmly in the Chase battle, sitting just two spots outside the final transfer position.
Legacy Motor Club’s encouraging Michigan weekend extended beyond Jones. John Hunter Nemechek survived a couple of on-track incidents to come home 14th. Looking ahead to Pocono, both drivers are worth tracking for props and DFS. Jones has a pair of top-10s and no finish worse than 14th at the Tricky Triangle in the Next Gen era, while Nemechek managed a sixth-place result there last year.
Given the similarities between Michigan and Pocono in terms of track type and setup demands, last weekend’s performance could prove to be a strong data point heading into Sunday.
Carson Hocevar
To the chagrin of many, Carson Hocevar’s breakthrough Talladega win earlier this year failed to immediately translate into a string of strong results. Michigan, however, was a different story. The No. 77 qualified on the front row at his hometown track, ruffled plenty of feathers with his role in a restart pileup and somehow emerged unscathed to finish fifth.
The result now gives Hocevar back-to-back top-10 finishes and a jolt in the NASCAR power rankings. One could argue that he had the car capable of a similar result at Charlotte if not for multiple pit road miscues. Hocevar drives with an edge that causes many to love him and many more to hate him, and there appears to be little willingness from the driver or team to change that approach.
Pocono presents an interesting next test. In two prior Cup starts at the Tricky Triangle, Hocevar has finished 17th and 18th. However, the speed he displayed on a similar big oval last weekend bodes well for what the No. 77 could be capable of this coming Sunday. Michigan vaulted him two spots to seventh in the standings, suddenly placing him right on the cusp of favorable positioning when the Chase reset occurs. The next few weeks will go a long way in determining whether Hocevar is a legitimate championship contender.
📉 Stock Down | NASCAR Power Rankings for Pocono
William Byron
This isn’t the first time William Byron has landed in the stock down portion of these NASCAR power rankings this season. Previous such instances almost felt premature given the general expectation that the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team would right the ship. Now that confidence is wavering.
Byron managed a ninth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600, but the performance was a far cry from what he has delivered in that race in recent years. Since then, a DNF at Nashville and an 18th-place result at Michigan represent his last two outings — and that 18th is actually his second-best result over the last four points-paying races.
Byron dropped another spot in the standings and now sits 12th, nearly 50 points above the cutline but well short of where expectations were set heading into 2026. Pocono doesn’t offer much relief on paper. Byron has just one top-10 finish in the last five races at the Tricky Triangle and was 27th there last year. The window to turn the season around is narrowing.
Ford Racing
At this point, Ford is simply an embarrassment. The entire manufacturer failed to show up in Saturday’s qualifying session at Michigan — Chris Buescher was the top blue oval on the grid and he only managed 14th. So much for the added pride of racing in the home state of Ford Motor Company headquarters.
A handful of Fords improved their starting positions by race’s end, aided in no small part by the volume of incidents and crashed cars throughout the afternoon. Joey Logano led the way in seventh, followed by Ryan Blaney and Buescher in the next two spots with Austin Cindric adding an 11th. Not awful results in isolation — but the gap between Ford and the other two manufacturers remains staggering. The blue ovals failed to lead a single lap at Michigan.
Here is the most damning number: Buescher’s top-5 at Texas was the last time a Ford driver finished inside the top five — and including the All-Star Race, that was five races ago! Ford hasn’t had a car finish better than fifth at a non-drafting track since Blaney was second at Bristol. Unless it’s a short track, a superspeedway, or a fuel mileage race, it is fair to question whether Ford will win again in 2026.
Shane van Gisbergen
Shane van Gisbergen made waves at Charlotte and Nashville when he spent the entirety of both races running in or just outside the top 10. Known primarily as a road course weapon, SVG appeared to have cracked the oval code — a welcome development for his NASCAR power rankings status and for a Trackhouse Racing organization mired in a miserable 2026 season.
Both performances, however, came with an asterisk. Qualifying was rained out at Charlotte and Nashville, and SVG benefitted from his Watkins Glen victory in the qualifying metric to secure a favorable starting spot. To his credit, he made the most of that track position both times. When timed qualifying finally went off without issue at Michigan, the result told a different story. SVG was stuck at the back of the pack and eventually finished 30th with a DNF.
The early qualifying draw that comes with that result puts him in a difficult spot at Pocono, where he finished 31st in his only prior Cup Series start last year. It seems wise to temper expectations for the No. 97 this weekend. The good news — a pair of road courses are on deck after Pennsylvania, where SVG will be firmly back in his element.
