Hendrick Motorsports holds the top three spots in the points standings after the seasonβs first six races.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. β Stop me if youβve heard this one before: Hendrick Motorsports is having a great start to the season.
The Concord-based team has two wins in the seasonβs first six races and occupies the top three positions in the points standings. William Byron, Kyle Larson, and Alex Bowman hold those spots, respectively, with Chase Elliott sitting in sixth.
Like most seasons, the team is looking in dominant form in 2025.
Hendrickβs form was well on display Sunday with Larson and Bowman battling for the win late in the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Bowman started on the pole and was leading late until Larson orchestrated a monumental run to take control of the race and win for the second time at Homestead. The win capped off a dominant weekend for Larson at the track, which featured a win in the Craftsman Truck Series race and a fourth-place run in the Xfinity Series race where he led the most laps.
βI didnβt think anybody was going to catch [Bowman],β Jeff Gordon, the Vice Chairman of Hendrick Motorsports and four-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, said after the race. β[But] you canβt ever count out Kyle Larson, especially at [Homestead].β
Larson has two wins at the track and four top fives in the Cup Series. He has led over 600 laps at the track, the most all-time. Larson has an average finish of 3.4 at the track in the Xfinity Series and an 8.5 average finish in the truck series.
The Hendrick driverβs hopes of a complete weekend sweep were thwarted by a late race caution in Saturdayβs Xfinity Series race. Larson led by over 15 seconds when a spin forced a restart with two laps to go. Larson was bumped on the restart and lost the lead.
His luck was the opposite in Fridayβs truck race. Corey Heim, who led most of the race, suffered a mechanical problem in the final 10 laps, allowing Larson to pass for the lead and the win.
On Sunday, it was all Larson racing from fourth to first in the raceβs final 30 laps. As other drivers struggled to keep their cars going with aging tires, Larson powered ahead unphased and pushed his way to the front.
βI just wanted to take the green flag and kick everybody’s ass today,β Larson said. “I wanted to get to the lead early and just dominate like I was [on Saturday]. Then the green flag flew, and it was like the opposite. I was going backwards.. after 10 laps or so, I forgot about the wanting to kick everybody’s ass all race long. It was like, ‘All right, let’s try to and work hard at this and get a win.’β
Larsonβs hopes of a win seemed dashed when an incident on pit road damaged his car. Josh Berry slammed Larson while exiting his pit box, also collecting Joey Logano. The damage proved only cosmetic as Larsonβs pace stayed well.
Saturdayβs disappointing result motivated Larson to pick up the win on Sunday. He said he didnβt think too much about the would-be sweep after his win but it will be something he reflects on later. Kyle Busch remains the only driver to accomplish a weekend sweep in all three series. He did so at Bristol in 2010 and 2017.
Hendrick, though, is sweeping the competition in the early part of the season. Byron and Larson each have one win, three top fives, and four top 10s this year. Bowman has one top-five and five top-10s. All four Hendrick cars are the only Chevrolets in the top 10 in points.
Despite the good start, Gordon and Larson say they need to do more work to pick up speed and turn good runs into wins, like on Sunday.
Hendrick has a NASCAR Cup Series record 14 championships, but none since Larson won the 2021 title. If the team does pick up even more speed than what they are showing early in 2025, then Title No. 15 could be on the horizon come November.
The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is at Martinsville Speedway, a track synonymous with the Hendrick Motorsports story. Byron won the race last year as the team celebrated its 40th anniversary.
