NASCAR: Chip Ganassi Racing showing Chevrolet is not Hendrick Motorsports’ problem

Through the first five races of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, Chip Ganassi Racing have shown that Chevrolet isn’t Hendrick Motorsports’ problem.

After struggling throughout much of the 36-race 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season and only ending up with three victories, their lowest single-season win total since they earned just one victory in the 1993 season, Hendrick Motorsports have struggled to start off the 2019 season as well.

Through the first five races on the 36-race 2019 schedule, none of the team’s four drivers have finished a race in the top seven. Their four drivers, Alex Bowman, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Jimmie Johnson, have combined to earn only three top 10 finishes so far this year.

Johnson has recorded the team’s highest finish of the season so far, as he finished in eighth place in the season’s fourth race at ISM Raceway. He also finished in ninth in the season opener, the Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway, and Elliott finished in ninth in the season’s third race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

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Through the season’s first five races, Elliott’s average finish is the highest average finish among the average finishes of the team’s four drivers, and he is the team’s highest driver in the championship standings. His average finish is 14.00, and he sits in 12th place in the standings.

While it would be easy to pin Hendrick Motorsports’ lack of success on Chevrolet, as Chevrolet teams struggled in general with the switch from the SS to the Camaro ZL1 ahead of the 2018 season and Chevrolet drivers have combined to earn just four victories (three by Elliott and one by Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon) in the last 51 races going all the way back to the end of the 2017 season, Chip Ganassi Racing have illustrated that the struggles that the top team of this era are currently enduring may be more of their own problem than a Chevrolet problem.

With Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray as their drivers last season, Chip Ganassi Racing failed to win a race, but a lot of this had to do with Larson’s lack of ability to seal the deal. He was in a position to win at least five or six races throughout the season, and his laps led total of 782 trailed only the laps led totals of the four Championship 4 drivers (Team Penske’s Joey Logano, Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch). These four drivers combined to win 23 of the season’s 36 races.

Through the first five races of the 2019 season, Chip Ganassi Racing have undoubtedly been the strongest Chevrolet team, and it really isn’t close. In fact, at this point, there is a case to be made for them as the third strongest team in the sport behind Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, the two teams that have combined to win the first five races of the year.

Already this season, Larson could not capitalize on a great opportunity to win a race, this time in the season’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but it wasn’t because of a lack of speed. He led 142 of the first 223 laps of this race, and his laps led total through five races so far this season, which is still 142, ranks third among the laps led totals among all drivers. Busch has led 361 laps while Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney has led 150.

Larson has not finished a race in lower than 12th place all season, and with an average finish of 9.80, he sits in eighth place in the championship standings. He was the highest finishing Chevrolet driver of the race at ISM Raceway, as he finished in sixth.

Meanwhile, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch, who is in his first season driving for the team, has recorded Chevrolet’s top finish in three of the season’s first five races, and aside of the fact that he finished in 25th place in the season opener as a result of his involvement in an early wreck, he has been arguably the most consistent driver not named Kyle Busch, who has earned two victories and recorded an average finish of 2.60 with no finishes outside of the top six so far this season.

Kurt Busch was the highest finishing Chevrolet driver in the season’s second, third and fifth races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway. He finished these races in third, fifth and sixth place, respectively. He finished in seventh behind Larson in the race at ISM Raceway.

Busch has recorded an average finish of 9.20 through the season’s first five races, and his average finish over the course of his four-race top seven streak is an impressive 5.25. He sits in ninth place in the championship standings, just three points behind Larson (163 to 160).

The only race that did not result in a Chip Ganassi Racing driver as the highest finishing Chevrolet was the season’s lone restrictor plate race, the Daytona 500, and the results of restrictor plate races tend to be pretty unexpected in many cases anyway. Germain Racing’s Ty Dillon was the highest finishing Chevrolet driver in this race with his sixth place finish. Larson finished right behind him in seventh.

Is Chevrolet to blame for Hendrick Motorsports’ struggles through the first five races of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, or have Chip Ganassi Racing proven through the success that they have had in these five races that Hendrick Motorsports’ problems stem from themselves as a team as opposed to Chevrolet as their manufacturer? Only time will tell.