After Saturday night’s (Aug. 23) race at Daytona International Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports officially locked all four of its drivers into the Cup Series playoffs. The only missing piece was Alex Bowman, who came into the race on the playoff bubble and could have been knocked out by a new winner.
Bowman did not win the race; his night ended after getting swept up in a crash on lap 27. In fact, none of the Hendrick drivers won, even though Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott were in prime position to take the victory.
It was Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney who captured the checkered flag, holding off a gaggle of would-be upset winners.
It was not pretty, but Bowman will join Larson, Elliott, and regular season champ William Byron in the playoffs.
Although Hendrick may claim a quarter of the 2025 playoff field, the organization still has some questions to answer. Strength in numbers does not automatically make Hendrick, or any of its drivers, the title favorites.
Although the team has won 38 races since 2022, Hendrick has lost the last three championships to Penske. That includes 2024, where the organization was nearly shut out of the championship race, with only Byron advancing to the final round on a technicality.
The 2025 season gives the Hendrick drivers another chance to chase the Bill France Cup, but which of its drivers are most up to the task?
Even though things worked out for Bowman on Saturday, he is still in a tough position. The No. 48 team will have only two playoff points to start the postseason, fewer than any other contender. Until Daytona, Bowman had done a great job stacking points as the regular season wound down, and those skills will help him as he tries to avoid an early exit. Bowman has never been eliminated in the Round of 16, but the Round of 12 is a different story.
Last year’s elimination might have been the most painful of all for Bowman. He and the No. 48 team were originally granted a spot in the Round of 8 on points, only for a postrace penalty for the car being underweight to take them out of title contention, in turning setting off the chain of events that allowed Joey Logano to win his third title
It was a shocking turn of events, made even more surprising by Hendrick’s decision not to appeal the penalty. You would think that the organization would try to fight a decision that had such a serious impact on Bowman’s season, but Hendrick declined to do so.
Maybe the No. 48 team was simply caught red handed. Or, maybe Hendrick did not want NASCAR’s officials looking at their cars with extra scrutiny. Either way, the team must avoid any similar misadventures to win a championship this year.
At the other end of the playoff grid are Byron and Larson, who begin the postseason with 32 playoff points each and stand 26 points above the cut line. Elliott concluded the regular season with 13 playoff points and finds himself seventh on the grid, seven points above the cutoff.
The logical conclusion is that Byron and Larson must be the championship favorites, and there is no doubt that they have both had strong seasons. However, neither driver should be considered a shoo-in for the championship race.
Byron has a habit of starting off strong each season and struggling to maintain the same level of performance throughout the year. Of his 15 career Cup Series wins, only one was during the playoffs, and only five have come in the second half of the regular season.
Under NASCAR’s current rules, timing is a more important factor than overall performance in determining a champion. Byron may have the speed, but does he have the timing?
Larson, Hendrick’s most recent champion, might also have a timing problem. The No. 5 team was lights out early in the season, when Larson scored nine top 10s in 12 races. Three of those top 10s were wins, including a victory at Kansas Speedway that allowed Larson to take the points lead.
But after another disastrous attempt at the Memorial Day Double, Larson has not been the same. He has not won a race or led more than 40 laps in a single event since Kansas. Larson could still be a bigger threat to win playoff races than Byron. He won five alone in 2021 on his way to the title. But if that’s going to happen, Larson and the No. 5 team need to find their early season form very soon.
Finally, there is the ever-consistent Elliott. A month ago, he took the overall points lead away from Byron for a couple weeks, only to surrender it back to the No. 24 team after Byron won at Iowa Speedway. In the races that followed, Elliott lost his top-20 finish streak at Watkins Glen International, then had his first DNF of the year at Richmond Raceway.
A 10th-place result at Daytona on Saturday stopped the bleeding, but Elliott fell to fourth in overall points. While that still awarded him seven playoff points for his regular season efforts, it could have been 15 if he had held on to the points lead. Those lost points could loom large down the stretch, especially if Elliott drops below the cut line. For the No. 9 team, every point will matter in the playoffs, particularly if Elliott cannot get back to victory lane.
Hendrick Motorsports has all the potential in the world to win the championship. However, potential does not determine who gets the trophy at the end of the season. That honor has gone to Team Penske for the past three years, and at this point, it is difficult to consider anyone other than Blaney or Logano the title favorites.
All the Hendrick drivers are capable of making a deep playoff run. Byron and Larson have the additional advantage of starting the postseason with the most points.
But at the same time, all four Hendrick drivers have lingering questions about their ability to race for a championship in 2025. If the organization is going to break Penske’s Next Gen stranglehold on the Cup Series championship, it will have to answer those questions in the next 10 weeks.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.
I thought they would dump Bowman at the end of the year and put Zilisch in the 48 next year. But they put him the Trackhouse car for 2026 to get experience and he will probably be in the 48 in 2027.
Actually, the theory is correct, albeit for totally different reasons than cited in the article.
HMS goes for an all-out assault for the entire season. So, once the playoffs come around, their drivers & teams are worn out & make more mistakes. You don’t see Penske putting emphasis on the meaningless regular season championship, do you? They get into the playoffs during the regular season with a win, & from there, the playoffs are where their organizations’s primary focus is. If they win again during the regular season, that’s great, but they have their eyes on the prize at the end of the season, before the playoffs even begin. That gives them an advantage.
The past two years with the moronic “double” attempt at Indy have merely reinforced that, as after each attempt, Larson has largely been mediocre in Cup the rest of the season last year & this year, so far. Too much energy & focus was devoted to that, detracting from where their focus needs to be.
The entire organization seems to have fallen into a rut, as far as winning the Cup goes. I have other thoughts about that, but, they’re not along the same lines as the topic we’re discussing.
HMS needs to reorganize how they approach the season, lighten up on dominating the regular season so much, & focus on the big picture, instead of wearing out their teams as much during the regular season. Until they do, they’re not likely to win the Cup again with any regularity.
Yeah, they’ve been so terrible there’s a waiting list to drive their cars.
Yeah, if I squint I can kind of see the logic behind this article, but even then, it seems a bit of a stretch.
Hendrick has two drivers at the top after the points reset, and another in the middle of the pack. Not seeing another team which can match this, nor am I seeing a driver or team which currently seems to be performing noticeably better.
As we’ve all noted ad nauseam, the playoffs are inherently somewhat random, so most who are in have a real chance, and even SVG and/or Dillon could get there, if everything falls their way. That doesn’t mean Hendrick isn’t the favorite.
Forced to place a bet, I’d choose Hendrick over any other team. More money, more entries, top tier drivers, and Chevy proved last year they are more than willing to play dirty in order to help their cars progress through the rounds. They may not get away with being as obvious as Dillon and Chastain were blocking Reddick last year, but that doesn’t mean Chevy won’t try something.
Not a fan of Hendrick. Too many things from the past. I do think Larson could win the Championship. Don’t know about the others, maybe Byron.
Agreed. Not a fan either. Still, not seeing another team quite at their overall level. As we saw with Logano last year, with a little bit of luck, and a little bit of a hot streak, I could see most teams having a path to the title.