NASCAR Cup Series: Driver Power Rankings after 2018 GEICO 500 at Talladega
By Asher Fair
Team Penske’s Joey Logano won his first race of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season at Talladega. How did his win affect the driver power rankings?
Team Penske’s Joey Logano ended what was a 36-race win drought by winning his first race of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season in his #22 Ford. He won the GEICO 500 at the four-turn, 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, Alabama to finally end that drought.
Logano’s win makes him the sixth different driver to win a race through 10 races so far this season, thus making him the sixth of 16 drivers who will eventually clinch a berth in the 2018 Cup Series playoffs.
That said, Logano’s lone win last season at this time at Richmond Raceway was encumbered, and he ended up failing to qualify for the playoffs despite the fact that he thought he was locked into the playoff field after winning that race.
Even if that does not happen to him this time after his win at Talladega, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen to another driver in the near future.
Logano became the first Cup Series driver not named Kyle Busch to win a race since March when Clint Bowyer won at Martinsville Speedway on Monday, March 26th. Busch had won each of the last three races at Texas Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Richmond Raceway leading up to the race at Talladega Superspeedway.
How did the action from the 2018 GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway affect the NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings? Here are the formulated NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings and the non-formulated NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings following the race.
To see how the formulated NASCAR Cup Series Driver Power Rankings are calculated, click here.