NASCAR Cup Series: Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports making progress

Are Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports finally on the right track after a rocky start to the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season and past few seasons?

Over the course of the last few NASCAR Cup Series seasons, Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet have struggled as a whole.

Chevrolet drivers have won just five of the 57 races that have been contested since the end of the 2017 regular season, and one driver, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott, has been responsible for earning the most recent four of these victories.

While the 23-year-old Dawsonville, Georgia native has earned these four victories, which are the first four victories of his Cup Series career, over the course of the last 26 races, these four victories are the only four victories by any Chevrolet driver over the course of the last 46 races.

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The most recent race that was won by a non-Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver was the 2018 season opener, the Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway. Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon won this race after leading only its final lap.

But after Toyota (specifically Joe Gibbs Racing) and Ford (specifically Team Penske) opened up the season by winning the first nine races to become the first team duo in Cup Series history to combine to win the first nine races of any seasons, have Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet in general found the speed that they need to be regular contenders to win races?

Elliott earned the fourth victory of his career by winning the season’s 10th race at Talladega Superspeedway, and he won it ahead of teammate Alex Bowman in second place and JTG Daughtery Racing rookie Ryan Preece, another Chevrolet driver, in third. Richard Childress Racing rookie Daniel Hemric and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kurt Busch finished in fifth and sixth, respectively to give Chevrolet drivers five of the top six positions.

The finishes of Bowman, Preece and Hemric in this race were career-high finishes, with Elliott also obviously tying his career-high finish as well by winning the race.

This success may be easy to write off because of the fact that it came in a superspeedway race, but Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports kept up their momentum in the following race at Dover International Speedway.

Elliott took the pole position for this race alongside teammate William Byron in second place with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson in third, giving Hendrick Motorsports a front row sweep and Chevrolet a top three sweep on the starting grid.

While Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. went on to win the race, Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports once again had a very strong outing. Elliott led the first 107 laps of the 400-lap race around the four-turn, 1.0-mile (1.609-kilometer) high-banked Dover International Speedway oval in Dover, Delaware, and he was the dominant driver for much of the first two stage of the race. He ended up leading a field-high 145 laps in his #9 Chevrolet.

Bowman’s #88 Chevrolet, meanwhile, was a rocket, and it really took off late in the race. He was forced to start the race in 34th place after qualifying in fifth as a result of the fact that he failed pre-race inspection twice, but he worked his way up through the field to lead 16 laps before settling for his second consecutive career-high finish of second.

Larson, meanwhile, did not lead any laps, but he finished in a season-high third. With all things considered, the fact that Larson finished a race in third really bodes well for Chevrolet considering everything negative that he has endured through the season’s first 11 races.

To add on to that, what the 26-year-old Elk Grove, California native has endured so far this season has taken place even though Chip Ganassi Racing have not struggled like Hendrick Motorsports have overall this season when it comes to the Chevrolet teams.

Elliott ended up finishing in fifth place to give Chevrolet three of the top five positions, and he may very well have led more laps and finished higher had he not been held up by the lapped car of Dillon. Elliott simply could not get around his #3 Chevrolet, and because of it, he fell to fourth after leading comfortably. He was unable to recover late in the race.

On a site note, Byron ended up finishing in a solid eighth place, tying the third best finish of his career.

Chevrolet drivers — Hendrick Motorsports drivers, to be specific — combined to lead 170 laps of this race. Meanwhile, Toyota drivers combined to lead 133 laps while Ford drivers combined to lead the other 97.

With all things considered, it is undeniable that Chevrolet’s status as a “disaster” has changed. They are making progress, and as a result, Hendrick Motorsports are slowly but surely working toward becoming the force that they have been known to be in the Cup Series over the last few decades.

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Do Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet in general have the speed that they need to be regular contenders to win races at all types of tracks throughout the remainder of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season, or is there still work that they need to do to get to that point? How many more races will they win before the season ends, and which drivers will win these races?

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