Sunday's AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway marked the ninth points race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. This provides another excellent data point to add to our weekly analysis as we continue to evaluate the best NASCAR drivers right now.
Toyota has been the standout team in our NASCAR Power Rankings this season and Sunday's race at Kansas didn't change that. However, there is still quite a bit of movement in our ranking of the best drivers in NASCAR today.
1. Tyler Reddick (First: 1)
Tyler Reddick now has five wins in nine races this season. It's absolutely absurd how excellent the No. 45 car has been in 2026. Was he as dominant as Dale Earnhardt when he won five of the first nine races? No, and the fact that Redick is fifth in laps led (189) shows that. What he's proving this year is that he'll likely be regular season champion, and a 25-point lead in The Chase and how well he's performing in the mile-and-a-half could now make him the championship favorite.
RELATED: Insider reveals potential cost of signing Tyler Reddick to new contract
2. Denny Hamlin (First: 4)
If not for "Cody Were Caution", Denny Hamlin probably would have won the race at Kansas on Sunday. However, it is also fair to acknowledge the No. 11 driver was again put in position to win that race as Reddick's car momentarily experienced fuel issues. Missing that second win in 2026, which would have tied him with Kyle Busch for all-time Cup Series wins, is certainly painful for Hamlin. Fortunately, he still won Stage 1, he claimed the second-best average finishing position (5.3) over the last six races, and he led the Cup Series in laps led (562) during that span while earning 292 points (48.7 per race).
RELATED: NASCAR Cup Series all-time wins leaders
3. Kyle Larson (1st: 5)
Kyle Larson has now gone 33 consecutive races without a win in the Cup Series. It seems unimaginable for this to happen to the driver of the No. 5 car, but heartbreaking defeats have been a theme for him this year. While it's clear that Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet are still trying to figure things out with their new setup, as evidenced by the performance of the other HMS cars, Larson is still on tears. He has won three of the last four stages and has scored 54 points in consecutive races, while finishing in the top 10 in six of his last seven races (32nd at Darlington). A win is coming for Larson, but even without it he is back to performing like one of the best NASCAR drivers.
RELATED: NASCAR Cup Series Stage Winners 2026
4. Christopher Bell (First: 6)
Ignore Christopher Bell's 20th-place finish at Kansas Speedway last weekend. He finished in the top five in both stages, posted the fastest lap and was in the top four at the start of overtime. Unfortunately, luck ran out of him. Reddick went right over the bell and sent the No. 20 car into the wall, dropping him to 20th due to the damage. Bell had the race-winning car on Sunday and should have at least finished in the top five.
5. Ryan Blaney (First: 2)
Team Penske finally made a change to Ryan Blaney's pit crew last week and it didn't make a difference. He ran a very good race early on, but then suffered damage to the No. 12 car's splitter due to contact with AJ Allmendinger on pit road. The team took a penalty for having too many people over the wall to work on it and, after finishing ninth at Kansas, Blaney finished 24th after spending parts of the final stage several laps down. This ended a streak of three consecutive top six finishes and a seven-race streak where his average finishing position was 4.6. Blaney is on par with Redduck, Larson and Hamlin in terms of his racing ability, but his team is not doing him any favors this year.
RELATED: AdventHealth 400 winners, losers
6. Ty Gibbs (1st: 3)
Ty Gibbs now has seven consecutive races with top-10 finishes en route to his first Cup Series win, and he is averaging 43.1 points per race during that span. So why is he falling in our NASCAR power rankings? Because with the speed the No. 54 car had on Sunday at Kansas and as good a job as his pit crew did in getting him back out there quickly, he really struggled to make passes. It was a very uneventful race for Gibbs, and it felt like he got less time with his car and team than the other top drivers.
RELATED: 2026 NASCAR Cup Series standings now after Kansas Speedway
7. William Byron (before: 8)
It's a nice rebound from William Byron after what happened with the setup of the No. 24 car at Bristol (30th place). Byron certainly didn't have the pace to win the race on Sunday at Kansas; The car was not good enough to challenge for a top five average running position. However, after qualifying in 14th place, Byron finished 11th in Stage 1 and 13th at the end of Stage 2. By the end of overtime he had moved up to seventh, his fifth top 10 finish in the last six races. Now it's up to Hendrick to improve on his troubling 24.0 average starting position over the last two races.
8. Chase Elliott (First: 7)
By the standards of how things should be for the No. 9 team under Chase Elliott, Sunday was fine. He finished sixth in Stage 1, and Allan Gustafsson's pit-timing strategy resulted in fourth place in Stage 2. Elliott has scored more than 40 points in three of his last four races with three top-10 finishes, but there are also two poor performances at Phoenix (23rd) and Bristol (22nd) that highlight more of the inconsistency seen in this team than in 2025.
RELATED: AdventHealth 400 results, full NASCAR stage results at Kansas
9. Chase Briscoe (First: 9)
If Chase Briscoe started today he would be in Chase. This is a good situation after a rough first month of the season in which he finished 36th or worse in three of the first four races and scored only 4 points overall in that span. Briscoe boasts an 8.4 average finishing position over the last five races, and although there is still room for improvement for the No. 19 team, they are at least getting back on the right track.
10. Bubba Wallace (previously: unranked)
That kind of performance should make Bubba Wallace feel even more remorse over his actions at Martinsville, which cost them at least 15 points. He finished fifth on Sunday and remained in the top six of the field for most of the race at Kansas. He is now tied with William Byron on points, and if he had kept a cool head a few weeks ago, we would be talking about him sitting sixth in the standings, just a few points behind Elliott.
