NASCAR: Have Hendrick Motorsports caught Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske?

By Asher Fair | Jul 5, 2019

JOLIET, ILLINOIS - JUNE 30: Alex Bowman, driver of the #88 Axalta Chevrolet, leads Jimmie Johnson, driver of the #48 Ally Chevrolet (L),and Kyle Larson, driver of the #42 McDonald's Chevrolet, out of turn four during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on June 30, 2019 in Joliet, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

Hendrick Motorsports are one of only three teams that have won so far in the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season. But have they caught the other two?

Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have been the two dominant forces of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series season so far. They opened up the 36-race season by combining to win the first nine races, and by the time the season’s 17th race rolled around, they have collected 15 victories in 16 attempts.

With two victories, Hendrick Motorsports are the only other team to win any races this season. But after Alex Bowman delivered them their second victory by earning what was the first victory of his Cup Series career in the Camping World 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, is it time to put them in the same category as Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske?

The easy answer to this question is no, as Joe Gibbs Racing have won a series-high 10 races so far this season while Team Penske have won five and Hendrick Motorsports have only won two.

Team Penske had earned two victories through the season’s first three races while Joe Gibbs Racing had earned two victories through the first four, while it took Hendrick Motorsports until the 17th to reach that mark.

Additionally, five of the seven Joe Gibbs Racing/Team Penske drivers have been victorious so far this season, and all of them have earned at least two victories individually, which is as many as Hendrick Motorsports have earned. In fact, three of these five drivers have won at least three races so far this season.

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However, in terms of Hendrick Motorsports ascending to the level of the two teams that have dominated the sport so far this season, it is a lot closer than the current win totals might indicate.

In terms of raw pace, nobody has more of it than Hendrick Motorsports. With six pole positions so far this season, they lead all teams, and they have taken twice as many pole positions as Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske combined.

Hendrick Motorsports’ struggle has been translating solid qualifying efforts into great race results. The combined average starting position of their four drivers is 12.1, but their combined average finishing position is 13.5.

This discrepancy of -1.4 may not seem like much, but compared to the marks of Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske in this category, it is flat-out abysmal.

The combined average starting position of Joe Gibbs Racing’s four drivers is 13.5 while their combined average finishing position is 10.8. The combined average starting position of Team Penske’s three drivers is 11.6 while their combined average finishing position is 11.3.

Of the four Hendrick Motorsports, only Chase Elliott, who won the season’s 10th race at Talladega Superspeedway back in late April, has an average finishing position that is better than his average starting position. Meanwhile, three of the four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers and two of the three Team Penske drivers can claim this.

But in particular, Hendrick Motorsports’ progression on 1.5-mile ovals, which is what Chicagoland Speedway is, since last season has been notable. We saw signs of it with Elliott’s victory in the round of 12 playoff race at Kansas Speedway last season in late October.

Those signs continued throughout the races at Texas Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier this season.

After two of their drivers finished in the top six at Texas Motor Speedway, three of their drivers finished in the top six at Kansas Speedway and all four of their drivers finished in the top nine in the race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, it finally all came together for the team in Sunday evening’s 267-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Chicagoland Speedway oval in Joliet, Illinois when Bowman led 88 laps en route to winning the race.

Jimmie Johnson and William Byron both led laps of this race and finished in fourth and eighth place, respectively, while Elliott overcame going two laps off the lead lap early to rally back to second, and he overcome an issue with the hose in a late pit stop to rally from 20th to 11th. Simply put, every one of Hendrick Motorsports’ cars had the speed needed to win this race.

When’s the last time that could be said about this team, and at an intermediate track, no less?

It is well worth noting that there are more intermediate tracks on the schedule than there are of any other track, and even more importantly, there are more of these tracks on the playoff schedule than there are of any other track.

With all four of their drivers currently above the playoff cut line, of whom two are locked into the playoffs, this bodes very well for Hendrick Motorsports moving forward. They may not be quite on the level of Joe Gibbs Racing or Team Penske just yet, but they are approaching that point after enduring many struggles in recent years, and nowhere was that more evident than at Chicagoland Speedway.

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Following their second victory in the last eight NASCAR Cup Series races, is it time to put Hendrick Motorsports in the same category as Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske, or do the four-car Chevrolet team still have work to do to catch the powerhouse four-car Toyota team and the powerhouse three-car Ford team?

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