NASCAR: Tony Stewart reveals the worst part about SHR’s struggles
By Asher Fair
Stewart-Haas Racing have had a rough season in 2021, despite coming off of a 2020 NASCAR Cup Series campaign that saw them lead the series in wins.
The 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season saw Stewart-Haas Racing collect a series-high 10 victories, including a series-high eight in the regular season.
Kevin Harvick won the regular season championship with seven wins and finished the season with nine, the highest single-season win total for any driver since Carl Edwards secured nine victories in the 2008 season.
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But the 2021 season hasn’t seen Stewart-Haas Racing resemble anything like what we saw a year ago.
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Harvick is on a 33-race win drought that dates back to last September, and the team’s only win came from the driver who ended the regular season in 23rd place in the point standings: Aric Almirola.
Almirola won the race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to qualify for the playoffs. Harvick is the team’s only other playoff driver, and a year after being the top seeded driver in the 16-driver playoffs, he ranks last in the playoff standings entering this year’s four-round, 10-race postseason.
The team’s other two drivers, rookie Chase Briscoe and Cole Custer, finished the regular season in 22nd and 28th place in the point standings, respectively.
Team co-owner Tony Stewart recently spoke to Beyond the Flag about the team’s struggles and the most frustrating part about them.
“It has not been a year that we’re used to, it’s not a year that we’re proud of or happy about, but we still have time to get it turned around, and I can promise you, until they drop the checkered flag at Phoenix, we will do everything in our power to give all four drivers the best opportunity we can to get them in victory lane and salvage this season,” Stewart told Beyond the Flag.
“It’s hard; the frustrating and hard part is we don’t know what the problem is, and that’s the most frustrating part because once you at least identify a problem, that’s a big chunk of your solution as well. So just finding and being able to identify exactly what the problem is that’s holding all four of our cars back right now is the main priority for all of us.”
Still, Almirola’s victory, his first since winning at Talladega Superspeedway in October 2018 and just his second in four seasons behind the wheel of the #10 Ford, provided a shot in the arm to a team that had been desperate for some speed.
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“It is,” Stewart said. “And it was for him and that team in particular, but definitely for the whole organization. It resonated through our shop.”