Dale Earnhardt Jr. ranks Big 3 NASCAR teams through Kansas

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season is a third of the way through and by now, the Championship favorites have started to reveal themselves. To nobody’s surprise, those drivers are mainly sprinkled across three teams: Team Penske, Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.

That order happened to make up Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR team power rankings going into this past Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway. Earnhardt revealed his list on Tuesday’s “Dale Jr. Download” podcast.

“I think Hendrick up until this race [Kansas], this is my opinion before the race, Penske was the fastest, which is odd because usually that’s them at the end of the year. I don’t know what that means at the end of this year because they’re rarely this quick early in the season. Hendrick is the most consistent and very boring,” Earnhardt said. “Now, [Kyle] Larson‘s kicking ass, having a great year, got great speed and statistics. … His average mile-and-a-half finish is like 4.5. The next highest driver is 10th.

“… Excluding Larson, HMS has been monotonous, just prodding. So, I would say they’re kind of the No. 2 team to me and Gibbs — I know Christopher Bell has been awesome but they’re up and down. Here, lately, they’ve kind of been more down than up. They’re all very close, I’m not saying there’s a massive advantage for one over the other [but] they’re the three teams that I look at. You’ll have a Trackhouse pop off and get a top-five or maybe win a race. 23XI is the same thing but they’re the B-teams. They’re second-tier teams to me.”

Where the big 3 NASCAR Cup Series teams stand

Larson has been his usual dominant self, sitting atop both the playoff and points standings with three wins. The other three Hendrick drivers — William Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman — sit second, fourth and eighth in the points standings, respectively.

But as Earnhardt mentioned, the Penske Fords have also been strong. Joey Logano, Austin Cindric and Josh Berry, whose Wood Brothers Racing No. 21 team shares a technical alliance with Penske, have all found Victory Lane. Ryan Blaney hasn’t, yet, but has the speed and four top 5s in the last five races.

Then there’s JGR, which sees Bell as the top dog. Bell won three consecutive races earlier in the season and is just behind Larson in the playoff standings. Denny Hamlin has a pair of victories but is coming off back-to-back DNFs for the first time since 2013. Chase Briscoe has been up and down in his first season piloting the No. 19 Toyota, while Ty Gibbs has experienced a nightmare start to the season. He is 26th in the points standings with just two top 10s.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. high on Hendrick Motorsports after NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas

Earnhardt had Penske as the No. 1 overall team heading into Kansas. But after seeing Hendrick’s dominance at Kansas, he’s got them “about even” with Penske.

“After this race, I gotta say it’s about even now,” Earnhardt said. “I know it’s one damn race and this sport ebbs and flows week-to-week, but that’s a fun conversation to me to rank the teams, judge the organizations because this Next Gen car and how it’s a kit car, has made that conversation relevant. I guess after the end of the race and even during the middle of the race, when Chase Elliott drove through the middle of the field, I’m like, ‘This is fu*king impressive.’ I haven’t seen the speed out of his car, haven’t seen this kind of speed out of many of the HMS cars outside of Larson.

“But Bowman drove up to the front of the field earlier in the race, Byron was probably going to be a contender had the tire not blown. They were strong. And I think that looks good for them [Hendrick] going into Charlotte. I really do. I think we’ll see somewhat similar speeds and performance from these organizations at the next race.”