NASCAR Cup Series: Way-too-early 2021 power rankings

Way-too-early 2021 NASCAR Power Rankings: #16 and #15

While it is true that Austin Dillon, like Cole Custer, would not have qualified for the 2020 playoffs if not for his upset victory at Texas Motor Speedway, he showed clear improvement down the stretch aside from his victory and was able to overperform tremendously in the playoffs en route to his first round of 12 berth since 2016 and a 11th place finish in the championship standings, which matched his career-best from 2017. He had two of the best races of his career to open up the playoffs with a second place finish at Darlington Raceway and a fourth place finish at Richmond Raceway, and despite missing a race due to a positive COVID-19 test, he tied his career-best of four top five finishes throughout the year. It hasn’t been particularly flashy, but he has now been in the playoffs in four of the last five seasons.

You have to feel for Aric Almirola, who was in the midst of a career-best season with several chances to win but simply couldn’t find victory lane for the second straight year and ended up in 15th place in the championship standings, his worst finish in three seasons as a Stewart-Haas Racing driver. After entering the year with a career-best of four top five finishes in a season, he reeled off five consecutive top five results in the middle of the season. Unfortunately, he recorded only one top five result in the other 31 races, although he did manage to top his previous career-high mark of 17 top 10 finishes with 18. You just get the feeling that if he can finally break through, he will be a threat to win multiple races. The question is if and when that will happen.