It’s not often you see Hendrick Motorsports collectively have an off night. That, however, is exactly what happened in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff opener at Darlington Raceway.
William Byron, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman — all playoff drivers — all failed to finish inside the top 15. Byron was the driver to beat in the spring race at Darlington, leading a race-high 243 laps. He expected to compete for the win Sunday night, but it didn’t come to be. Larson, meanwhile, was a popular pick to win. Like his teammates, he failed to make much of an impact, which surprised Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.
“What the hell happened to Hendrick Motorsports?” Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. “In the spring race, William Byron was as dominant as [Chase] Briscoe was, although he didn’t win thanks to some green flag pit strategy, but led 243 laps. When he was on for Media Day for us, he was very optimistic he was going to be able to come out there and perform. He was really running outside the top 10 most of the night. I think he might have finished 10th in Stage 2 but other than that, he was running 15th or something and he ends up finishing 21st.
“Kyle Larson was the top running Hendrick driver for a lot of the night, but even that was 12th or something. He ends up fading to 19th, although I listened to his radio after and [crew chief] Cliff Daniels told him he had some crash damage. … We have much higher standards for the 5 team. People were thinking he’s going to win the race.”
Hendrick Motorsports gets it wrong at Darlington
Byron and Larson were just half of the equation. Elliott and Bowman arguably had even worse nights, even though the former was the highest-finishing Hendrick driver at Darlington (17th). Elliott wasn’t full of much confidence after the race, while Bowman described his run as a “shitty, unacceptable day on all fronts.”
“Chase Elliott… I think his strategy had a chance to work for a little bit there,” Gluck said. “He late pitted and he had fresher tires, he was coming up through the field and then they got a bad caution when Ryan Preece wrecked Cody Ware. At that point, they had enough laps on the tires where they had to come in again. Then, they had a bad pit stop, basically restarted all the way in the back. He ends up being the top finishing car — 17th.
“Alex Bowman — terrible qualifying effort for what they needed. Got caught up in the first wreck and then, they had to pit, had a terrible pit stop where the hose came disconnected, 40 seconds. … Just all through the organization, to have zero Hendrick cars in the top 15 at Darlington in the first playoff race — just a total miss and then, to make things worse, we thought they would be solid at Darlington and worried about Gateway. Now, Darlington was a miss, and they still have to go through Gateway. This was a really, really bad start for Hendrick.”
You thought Hendrick would be fine at Darlington and more concerned about Gateway this coming Sunday. After what we saw at Darlington, a strong run at Gateway is crucial for Elliott (11th in the playoff standings) and Bowman (15th).
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