Hendrick Motorsports won its 15th NASCAR Cup Series championship just one season ago, and while that was quite the feat, the organization now finds itself in a weird place during its 42nd season in the sport.
Yes, Chase Elliott won two races in the early part of the season at Martinsville Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway, but since then, it has been far and away a bad time at the track for the whole organization.
Most notably, you have the defending series champion Kyle Larson now on a 46-race winless drought, dating back to May 2025.
Is it time to panic for Hendrick Motorsports?
If that isn't a reason to be concerned, I'm not sure what else is. It's not a lack for effort, as Larson has eight top five finishes and three other top 10 finishes this season. He's also second in the series in laps led, trailing only points leader Denny Hamlin.
He has recently looked like the team's best driver, as Elliott has struggled throughout the summer months, with just one top 10 finish and no top five results since winning at Texas in early May.
Elliott has had some good cars in other races during that stretch, including at Michigan International Speedway, but a hard crash with Christopher Bell ended his race prematurely. At North Wilkesboro Speedway, he had the speed to at least keep up with race winner Joey Logano, but an early pit call, followed by a quick caution, kept him off the lead lap throughout the rest of the night.
Larson and Elliott aren't alone in the struggle, as William Byron hasn't won a race since November 2025 at Martinsville. After winning the regular season title a year ago, he's already eliminated this year, even with four races remaining before the playoffs.
As for Alex Bowman, he made it known that 2027 will be his last season, and this year was already a wash for him after he missed four races. He was the highest finisher in the Brickyard 400 – in 19th.
Spire Motorsports run Hendrick engines as well, and they have contended more often than Hendrick Motorsports. That does have to be a little panic-worthy, but things can change, as they often do.
Hendrick has been here before
Most Hendrick fans are probably sick of the Toyota run this season. That's racing; it comes and goes. This isn't the first time Hendrick has been in a slump.
Look how much they struggled after Jimmie Johnson won his seventh title in 2016. He won three more races in his career, all in early 2017, and Kasey Kahne won the 2017 Brickyard 400. Then the team didn't see another win until Elliott broke through in the second half of 2018, more than a year later during another season when Chevrolet debuted a new body.
Larson and Byron are obviously capable of winning, and Bowman for that matter, but the new body for the Chevrolet appears to have caught Hendrick a little off guard.
The past few races have been rough to say the least, especially for Elliott and Larson as they try to fight to be in the top five in the point standings. If they can get things situated during the off week and get things going for the last four races before the playoffs, you cannot count them out when every race matters during the 10-race postseason run to finish the year.
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