NASCAR Cup Series: Team Power Rankings after 2018 Auto Club 400 at Fontana
By Asher Fair
The fifth race of the 36-race 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Auto Club 400, is in the books. Which teams rank where in the power rankings?
Martin Truex Jr.’s victory in the fifth race of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season, which was the Auto Club 400 at the four-turn, 2.0-mile Auto Club Speedway oval in Fontana, California, was also Furniture Row Racing’s first victory of the season.
Truex Jr.’s victory in this race in his #78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota also gave Toyota their first win of the season after Austin Dillon won the Daytona 500 in his #3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Kevin Harvick won the next three races in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix, respectively, in his #4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
For the first time this season, the formulated NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings and the non-formulated NASCAR Team Power Rankings are exactly the same as one another, which shows that the new formula is doing its job. Or does it?
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The season is still in its opening stages, so it may still take some time until we really get a feel for how this new formula works and just how accurate it is. Up until this point in time, the “average finish” has matched the “average finish in last five races” category for each driver.
It will certainly be interesting to see what happens when this is no longer guaranteed to be the case following the sixth race of the season in both the NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings and the NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings.
If you are unsure of how these rankings are calculated, check out this Beyond the Flag article from the preseason or any prior NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings articles on Beyond the Flag.
Here are the NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings following the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. Click here to see the formula that is used to determine these rankings.
NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings
| Rank | Team | Manufacturer | Last Rank | Trend |
| 1 | Furniture Row Racing | Toyota | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | Team Penske | Ford | 4 | +2 |
| 3 | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 2 | -2 |
| 5 | Chip Ganassi Racing | Chevrolet | 6 | +1 |
| 6 | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 5 | -1 |
| 7 | Wood Brothers Racing | Ford | 7 | 0 |
| 8 | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 8 | 0 |
| 9 | Richard Petty Motorsports | Chevrolet | 10 | +1 |
| 10 | Roush Fenway Racing | Ford | 9 | -1 |
| 11 | JTG Daugherty Racing | Chevrolet | 11 | 0 |
| 12 | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 12 | 0 |
| 13 | Leavine Family Racing | Chevrolet | 13 | 0 |
| 14 | Go Fas Racing | Ford | 14 | 0 |
| 15 | Germain Racing | Chevrolet | 15 | 0 |
| 16 | BK Racing | Toyota | 17 | +1 |
| 17 | StarCom Racing | Chevrolet | 16 | -1 |
Biggest Movers
Up: Team Penske (+2)
Down: Stewart-Haas Racing (-2)
Non-formulated NASCAR Cup Series Team Power Rankings
| Rank | Team | Manufacturer | Last Rank | Trend |
| 1 | Furniture Row Racing | Toyota | 2 | +1 |
| 2 | Team Penske | Ford | 4 | +2 |
| 3 | Joe Gibbs Racing | Toyota | 3 | 0 |
| 4 | Stewart-Haas Racing | Ford | 1 | -3 |
| 5 | Chip Ganassi Racing | Chevrolet | 7 | +2 |
| 6 | Richard Childress Racing | Chevrolet | 5 | -1 |
| 7 | Wood Brothers Racing | Ford | 8 | +1 |
| 8 | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 6 | -2 |
| 9 | Richard Petty Motorsports | Chevrolet | 9 | 0 |
| 10 | Roush Fenway Racing | Ford | 10 | 0 |
| 11 | JTG Daugherty Racing | Chevrolet | 11 | 0 |
| 12 | Front Row Motorsports | Ford | 12 | 0 |
| 13 | Leavine Family Racing | Chevrolet | 13 | 0 |
| 14 | Go Fas Racing | Ford | 14 | 0 |
| 15 | Germain Racing | Chevrolet | 15 | 0 |
| 16 | BK Racing | Toyota | 17 | +1 |
| 17 | StarCom Racing | Chevrolet | 16 | -1 |
Biggest Movers
Up: Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing (+2)
Down: Stewart-Haas Racing (-3)
Next: Top 10 most unbreakable records across Formula One, NASCAR and IndyCar
The next NASCAR Cup Series race is scheduled to take place next Sunday, March 25th. That race, which is the STP 500, is set to take place at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia, and it is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 starting at 2:00 pm ET on that date.