NASCAR: Chase Elliott’s team now has negative points

Following the 100-point penalty, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team of Chase Elliott now has negative points in the NASCAR owner standings.

Chase Elliott was the only full-time Hendrick Motorsports driver who was not docked 100 points and 10 playoff points after last Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway.

NASCAR confiscated the hood louvers from all four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets after practice for the race, and they were forced to qualify and race with new ones.

While it clearly didn’t affect performance, with Kyle Larson taking the pole position, William Byron winning the race, and the entire team finishing in the top 10, NASCAR penalized the team in a big way after it was discovered that the louvers had been illegally modified.

Larson, Byron, and Alex Bowman were all docked 100 points and 10 playoff points, as were their teams in the owner standings. Elliott wasn’t, since he continues to be sidelined with the broken leg he suffered a few weeks ago and therefore wasn’t competing at Phoenix Raceway, when the apparent violations were discovered and dealt with.

All four of Hendrick Motorsports’ teams were also fined $100,000, and four-race crew chief suspensions were issued to each.

Josh Berry, who continues to fill in for Elliott, also wasn’t penalized. As a full-time Xfinity Series driver for JR Motorsports, he isn’t eligible for Cup Series points anyway.

But Josh Berry still scores points for Chase Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports team in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Because the No. 9 team is still competing amid Elliott’s absence, they were also docked 100 points and 10 playoff points in the owner standings, just like Larson’s No. 5 team, Byron’s No. 24 team, and Bowman’s No. 48 team.

Elliott had scored 49 points in the two races before his injury, and Berry has scored 35 thus far, eight with a 29th place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and 27 with a 10th place finish at Phoenix Raceway, bringing the team’s point total to 84.

With the 100-point penalty, the No. 9 team now has a negative point total of -16. It puts them 35th of 36 chartered entries in the owner standings, as Justin Haley’s No. 31 Kaulig Racing team was issued the same penalty for the same reason after the race at Phoenix Raceway and now sits in last with -40 points.

Can Berry get the No. 9 team back into positive point territory in this Sunday afternoon’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway? Tune in to Fox at 3:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the Ambetter Health 400. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now if you have not yet done so!