2021 NASCAR Preseason Power Rankings No. 25: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Prior to moving up to the Cup Series, Stenhouse won eight races en route to two straight NASCAR Xfinity Series championships in 2011-12. His background is that of a dirt sprint car driver, having just finished seventh out of hundreds of drivers that entered at the Chili Bowl Nationals earlier this month.

The 2020 Speedweeks seem like an eternity ago, but it is still notable that the No. 47 Chevrolet was considered easily the fastest car that week in Daytona Beach. Stenhouse was the polesitter before an early accident in the 500 relegated him to 20th in the Great American Race.

Stenhouse’s first season with JTG Daugherty was ultimately a disappointment due to a run of bad luck that infected the organization as a whole over the summer. 2020 was Stenhouse’s worst season since 2015 when it came to final points ranking, average finish and number of lead-lap finishes. The Mississippi native’s eight DNFs were also a career high, tying for second worst on the circuit with Preece.

Outside of the Daytona 500 pole, Stenhouse’s season highlights included a third at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an impressive fourth at Charlotte Motor Speedway with no strategy assistance and a runner-up at Talladega Superspeedway. Outside of those three races and a 10th at the first race at Dover International Speedway, Stenhouse failed to record another top-10 finish.

The new venues presented in 2021 are a bit of a mixed bag for Stenhouse. On one hand, the sprint car driver should be able to adapt very well to the brand new dirt race on the Cup circuit. On the other hand, said race will happen at Bristol Motor Speedway, which means he loses a race on concrete there. BMS has usually been Stenhouse’s best non-superspeedway race, so it’s addition by subtraction.

Stenhouse is fairly medicore on road courses, of which there will be seven total planned for 2021. If there were no stages, I’d be interested in seeing what crew chief Brian Pattie would cook-up strategy-wise. But with stages, everybody has to basically stay on the exact same strategy in those types of races.

Still, there seems to be a more solid foundation that was built under the No. 47 team for this year. Stenhouse should be more comfortable with this team after a year, especially considering the pure chaos everybody in the garage had to endure in 2020. Hendrick Motorsports’ engine department should also take a step up this season with its new partnership with Earnhardt Childress Racing Engines, which powers the other half of Chevrolet’s Cup Series lineup.

Crew chief Brian Pattie is one of the few people on a pit box in the bottom half of the garage who really seems to understand how this playoff system works. Finishing 20th every week just won’t get a team in the playoffs, and Pattie’s big swings at race strategy may prove costly, but the potential upside of winning a race would get the team a coveted playoff spot. He understands that this team isn’t going to consistently contend for race victories every single week and that hitting one home run can change the outlook of an entire season for this race team.

Good sign for 2021 https://t.co/q8r4FeDhFw

— Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (@StenhouseJr) December 30, 2020