Hendrick Motorsports finds themselves in an enviable early-season position
Yesterday at 09:00 AM
Four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, now the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports sat high above the pit lane action Sunday afternoon often seemingly caught between a grin and a grimace.
The four Chevrolet teams he oversees ultimately battled for the Homestead-Miami Speedway winner‘s trophy amongst themselves, with Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman settling the hardware after a hard-fought final dozen laps. Larson got around the pole winner Bowman with seven laps remaining to score his first victory of the year. Bowman‘s runner-up effort giving the team its first 1-2 finish of the 2025 season.
Even better, the day‘s efforts from all four Hendrick drivers — also including Daytona 500 winner William Byron and 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott — put the team in an enviable early-season position.
All four drivers are all ranked among the top-six in the championship standings as the series heads to the half-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway this weekend for the Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Byron, who finished 12th Sunday, now leads the championship by 36 points over Larson. Bowman‘s work — his fifth top-10 in the opening six races — puts him third in the rankings, 39 points behind Byron. And Elliott, who rallied to an 18th place showing despite a late race pit road penalty, is ranked sixth — 63 points by Byron.
"You know, it‘s a finicky sport because you want to get off to a good start, get in a good position in points so that you‘re not on your heels and playing catch-up – so that part is really nice,” Gordon said, noting however that as great as their points positions are, the team has only two wins on the season — Byron at Daytona and now Larson at Homestead.
"I think our guys really focused more on how do you bring the car with the most speed every single weekend,” Gordon continued. "Then when you get to Hendrick Motorsports on Monday, even if you brought four of the fastest cars to the racetrack, one of them [drivers] said, 'Mine wasn‘t as fast as…’ It‘s just constantly you‘re just chasing it.
"The nice thing is when you get a start like this and you‘re up there in the points, it‘s the fine-tuning, and what you are chasing is victories and just perfection is what you are really looking at.”
Larson, who essentially came a late caution flag away from a sweep of the three Homestead races, acknowledged having a weekend like that — company-wide — was a strong statement. However, as with Gordon, he said there remains some slight fine-turning to make the foursome the absolute champion-favorite already.
"It‘s very impressive to have four in the top six,” Larson said. "That‘s extremely tough to do. Although it‘s early in the year, I still think that‘s something to be proud of at HMS.
"Everybody works really hard. You‘re always constantly trying to get better and evolve your race cars and evolve your team and the processes. I think all four teams do have a good process, and we all work really well together.
"Although I feel like we‘re four of the top six, I don‘t think that any of us are like the best car currently,” he added. "There‘s still a lot of work to do to get to where we need to be and just trying to get better each and every week.”
Certainly, this week‘s venue presents yet another chance for the Hendrick team to shine brightly. All four drivers have wins at Martinsville. Byron has two victories and is the defending Spring race winner. Larson won the Spring, 2023 race. Bowman won the 2021 Fall race and Elliott won the 2020 Fall race.
"We still have work to do, but we‘re going to take the win and be happy about it and be happy about where we‘re at in points and just look at the things we have to work on,” Gordon said. "We don‘t have big things to work on other than just gaining a little bit more speed."
— NASCAR News Wire —
