NASCAR insiders sound the alarm for Hendrick Motorsports despite Chase Elliott Kansas win

The Toyota teams of Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing dominated Sunday’s Round of 12 race at Kansas Speedway. However, it was Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports who was celebrating in Victory Lane at the end of the race.

Toyota drivers led 216-of-273 laps at Kansas, but Elliott made the race-winning pass on Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace in Turn 4 on the final to win the race. Hendrick’s other playoff drivers, Kyle Larson and William Byron, finished sixth and ninth, respectively. Hendrick found a way, but Jeff Gluck of The Athletic isn’t convinced they are the team to beat moving forward in the playoffs.

“We’re not gonna hear the same level of oh my gosh, these guys are unbeatable that we heard last week at New Hampshire about Penske and the flat tracks because they didn’t even win the race today. But people should be saying that about the Toyotas after today going to Vegas,” Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. “If that’s such a key race, I mean, the whole competition, which is weird, Hendrick Motorsports should be going to their shop and going, ‘Holy crap, guys, what do we have to do to beat these guys,’ even though they just beat them.

“But it’s one of those things where you look at the speed and I just don’t know how you’re going to overcome that at Vegas. Obviously, things happen, and crazy stuff happens but yikes.”

Elliott is locked into the Round of 8. Larson will be there as well, plus-54 heading into this Sunday’s Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL. The same goes for Byron, who is plus-40 above the cutline.

Can Hendrick outperform Penske, JGR down the stretch?

But here’s the thing: Larson hasn’t won since May 11 at Kansas. Byron got the win last month at Iowa Speedway, though he’s largely been inconsistent over the last few months. The way the schedule lines up goes against Hendrick, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic said.

“I picked Kyle Larson to win the championship and it’s very hard to count out Kyle Larson and Cliff Daniels, but we talked about at the beginning of the show, I’m looking at this going I think a driver from Hendrick Motorsports winning the championship this year, a lot is going to have to go their way because of Las Vegas, because of Martinsville and because of Phoenix,” Bianchi said. “There isn’t a track the rest of the way where you’re going to look at anybody from Hendrick Motorsports and say they’re the favorite. There isn’t.

“You go to Vegas, it’s going to be Toyota. You go to Talladega, I would put the Penske cars up there, and then you’ve got Phoenix and Martinsville and it’s going to be the 22 [Joey Logano] and the 12 [Ryan Blaney], especially the 12. There isn’t a team right now from Hendrick Motorsports that scares me. That’s a sad reality, even though Chase Elliott won today.”

Gluck agrees with Bianchi. He likes Penske’s chances if one or both of Blaney and Logano get to the Championship 4 at Phoenix. After that, he has more belief in JGR than Hendrick.

“If there’s a Penske car in the final four, they’re going to be the favorite,” Gluck said. “Other than that, you look at [Christopher] Bell, [Chase] Briscoe, [Denny] Hamlin. But even if a Hendrick car is in there, I just don’t see it right now. I don’t see them running that well at those types of tracks. I don’t know, we’ll just see what happens.”