Kevin Harvick Warns NASCAR Garage of Toyota’s Exponential Rise to Top Amidst Rick Hendrick’s Dwindling Legacy

Let’s have a look at the NASCAR Cup Series standings for Toyota. They have five cars in the top 10. Their victorious drivers, Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin, are leading the series standings. Meanwhile, Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, and Bubba Wallace are bringing regular top-10 finishes.

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On weekends when Tyler Reddick leads the way, the other teams end up benefiting from his setup. On the weekends where the JGR cars are the pace setters, the 23XI cars get to learn. This shared channel of data and performance in Toyota and TRD helps the team maintain consistency.

Denny Hamlin has also confirmed by saying that both teams are “always privy” to what the other is doing, noting that 23XI is paying for full technical access and feeding its own findings back into the system. “Toyota clustering” during race weekends, teammates filling up the front rows in qualifying, or multiple cars running in the top 10, is also commonplace, which is a direct result of shared baselines.

And the scale of that system matters: JGR alone is a four-car operation that produced 13 race wins in 2025, returning major continuity in driver–crew chief pairings into 2026, meaning continuity in baseline setups and accumulated knowledge instead of reset cycles.

“Yeah, they’re the only ones getting better. They’re the only ones, right? Like, and they’re taking really good race cars and just keep fine-tuning them with these little things that the resources and where they’re racing at in the pack at the front all racing for the win. Like they’re just up there playing their own game,” Harvick hence added.

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But there is another aspect of the 2026 NASCAR season that bears a haunting resemblance to earlier failures in the Chevy camp.

Is Rick Hendrick heading towards the same pit of despair as others?

Sure, Chevy might be working with eight different teams and fielding nearly 20+ cars, but the disparity among them is vast. Just look at the performance statistics for Chevy this year. Hendrick Motorsports is leading the way as always. But Kaulig Racing, Trackhouse Racing, and Richard Childress Racing stay at the back of the race. Spire Motorsports occasionally rises to the top but quickly settles back into the midpack.

Denny Hamlin called this out in his podcast, saying, “When I look at Hendrick, and obviously, they are the flagship Chevy team, but then, like the other teams that get the ‘same information,’ the same is it’s like way off, like last. So, it’s crazy. It almost seems like you guys are better off not getting the ‘same information.”

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This segregation between the teams can be detrimental to Chevy. In this scenario, only Rick Hendrick and his team are the ones with valuable information since they are the leaders every weekend.

However, currently, they are facing some stagnation – going from setting standards to chasing them. Kyle Larson has remained winless for more than 30 races at this point. The likes of Chase Elliott and William Byron, who were regular winners in the Cup Series, are lagging behind the pack. GM’s partnership can only last so long for them. After all, we have seen teams that were previously competitive, like Trackhouse and RCR, lose that edge over time.