The team that won the most races in the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season, Stewart-Haas Racing, have not yet won a race in the 2019 season. When will this change?
Stewart-Haas Racing finished the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season quite comfortably atop the team wins list, and after the season’s second race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, they never dropped below a tie for first place on this list.
They finished the 2018 season with 12 victories. Joe Gibbs Racing finished in second place on the wins list with nine victories.
Kevin Harvick led Stewart-Haas Racing with eight victories while Clint Bowyer added two of his own. Aric Almirola and Kurt Busch, who now drives for Chip Ganassi Racing, each won one race throughout the 36-race season.
But the 2019 season has been a tale of two teams so far, and neither one of those two teams are Stewart-Haas Racing. Through the 36-race season’s first two races, the only two teams that had earned any victories are Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske. Through the season’s first seven races, this is still the case.
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Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin won the season opener, the Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway before Team Penske responded with victories by teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, respectively.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch then won consecutive races at ISM Raceway and Auto Club Speedway before Keselowski returned to victory lane at Martinsville Speedway. Hamlin followed up Keselowski’s second victory of the season with his second victory of the season at Texas Motor Speedway.
But Harvick, Almirola, Bowyer and Stewart-Haas Racing’s new driver, Daniel Suarez, have all been kept out of victory lane with nearly 20% of the season in the books.
When will the team end this slump?
Don’t expect it to be too much longer. In fact, any one of their four drivers could end this slump at pretty much any track.
The fact that Harvick is on an nine-race win drought should scream ticking bomb in itself, especially since he has reeled off six consecutive top nine finishes, including three fourth place finishes, and has recorded an impressive average finish of 5.83 in the last six races.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s four drivers have recorded an average average finish of 12.25 through the season’s first seven races, which is the second best average average finish for any team’s drivers at this point. Not including the wild card race that is the Daytona 500, this average average finish is 9.67.
Joe Gibbs Racing are the only team that have a better average average finish among their drivers than Stewart-Haas Racing. Their four drivers have recorded an average average finish of 8.79 through the season’s first seven races and an average average finish of 8.54 not including the Daytona 500.
In addition, Harvick and Almirola, who is on a six-race top nine streak of his own, currently sit in third and fifth place in the championship standings, respectively, which is exactly where they finished in the 2018 season.
Bowyer currently sits in 11th place in the championship standings, and he finished in 12th in the 2018 season. Suarez currently sits in 14th after finishing in 21st in the 2018 season, but he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing last year.
How much longer will it take before Stewart-Haas Racing end the win drought that they have been on through the first seven races of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, and at which track will they end it? It seems like it is only a matter of time before this win drought is history.