As Team Penske celebrated its third consecutive championship last year, Hendrick Motorsports, the sport’s most successful Cup team in terms of wins and titles, left Phoenix focused on a different outcome this year.
“This is a top priority … go to Phoenix and have a shot at the championship,” Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, said this week.
The three-year championship drought for Hendrick Motorsports is tied for the team’s longest since 2006. Only once since Hendrick claimed its first Cup crown in 1995 has the organization gone four seasons between titles.
Hendrick Motorsports will go for a record-extending 15th Cup title Sunday (3 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock) with Kyle Larson and William Byron, the regular season champion, racing for a crown. They’ll go against Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe for the championship.
Sunday will mark the third consecutive year Byron has reached the title race. He earned a spot after his win last weekend at Martinsville.
Last year, Byron, the lone Hendrick driver racing for a title at Phoenix, finished third in the race, behind Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. In 2024, Byron and Larson represented Hendrick in the championship race. Larson was third to Blaney and Byron was fourth.
Gordon sees signs of a different outcome for Hendrick this time.
“If you had asked me two months ago were we ready, I would say we’re gaining on it, maybe not there,” Gordon said of Hendrick’s chances in a title race at Phoenix. “If you asked me today, I’d say we’re ready and excited about the opportunity that’s only come from a tremendous amount of work and effort by our group and the season they put together.”
In most years, a driver has had to win the season finale at Phoenix to claim the championship. If that is the case this year and Hendrick claims its 321st Cup win and a title, some credit can go to Team Penske.
“Every year we continue to have to up the bar because, credit to the guys at Penske, they’ve set such a standard at Phoenix for how they compete and win,” Cliff Daniels, crew chief for Larson, said. “Every year we thought we’re bringing more to the table on the setup development side, on the car side and yet every year we continue to get beat. In a way that’s been a great challenge to push us in areas we didn’t expect.”
Phoenix Raceway, a 1-mile oval, is among a group of tracks that had not been the strongest for Hendrick Motorsports. Those tracks included Richmond, New Hampshire and World Wide Technology Raceway.
“We’ve been getting beat at those tracks recently,” Gordon said. “We feel like that was a top priority. I would say throughout this year, we’ve been gaining on that because of the amount of effort that’s being put in by our engineering group, our crew chiefs, and the feedback from the drivers, the communication with everybody, our teammates at Chevy, as well as Chevy and their engineering group, as well.”
Daniels said things changed this summer for Hendrick Motorsports at some of those tracks. He points to a test with Larson at World Wide Technology Raceway in late June when the team discovered some ways to make the car better that carried over to other tracks.