Kez remains on top in my early Daytona I driver rankings. (photo courtesy nascar)

Update: I’ve completed my final Daytona I driver rankings, which improve upon these early rankings.

Here are my early driver rankings for the Daytona 500. I compiled them by crunching the qualifying data from Daytona yesterday, and then melding it with the historical data:

1. Brad Keselowski
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
4. Kyle Busch
5. Joey Logano
6. Matt Kenseth
7. Martin Truex Jr.
8. Chase Elliott
9. Ryan Blaney
10. Kurt Busch
11. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
12. Kevin Harvick
13. Clint Bowyer
14. Kyle Larson
15. Austin Dillon
16. Jimmie Johnson
17. Daniel Suarez
18. Kasey Kahne
19. Jamie McMurray
20. Erik Jones
21. Trevor Bayne
22. Paul Menard
23. Aric Almirola
24. Ryan Newman
25. Ty Dillon
26. Michael McDowell
27. Danica Patrick
28. AJ Allmendinger
29. Brendan Gaughn
30. Chris Buescher
31. Landon Cassill
32. D.J. Kennington
33. Elliott Sadler
34. Matt DiBenedetto
35. David Ragan
36. Reed Sorenson
37. Michael Waltrip
38. Joey Gase
39. Cole Whitt
40. Corey Lajoie
41. Timmy Hill
42. Jeffrey Earnhardt