Hendrick Motorsports believed it had all the tools and talent to fight for its second consecutive title win with Larson dominating, until it did not. 10 races ago, Jeff Gordon had little to no faith that his reigning champion would even make it to the Chase. Now that Larson has won his third NASCAR Cup Series crown, Jeff Gordon has finally broken his silence on a season nobody saw coming.
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A SiriusXM NASCAR Radio reporter found his way to Jeff Gordon post-race to talk about the season they had just wrapped up unbelievably.
“Honestly, I didn’t think we had enough with any of our teams to fight for a championship this year. And the five teams stepped up immediately,” Gordon revealed. “I mean, all of our guys did, found speed. But man, they took it another level. It was amazing.”
Jeff Gordon’s statement in the X video reflected the story of Hendrick Motorsports’ 2026 season. The team arrived with the utmost confidence to carry its 2025 title-winning momentum forward but soon discovered that their Chevrolet fleet was not the strongest car on the grid.
Hendrick Motorsports‘ 2026 regular season slump accounted for the team’s fourth-worst run in the NASCAR Cup Series over the years. The biggest setback came from Chevrolet’s new aero body setup, which introduced a revised grille, a larger hood dome, and aggressive new rocker panels. These new features erased years of simulation data and left the teams fighting for survival.
The coveted garage had just two wins up until August 2026, with Chase Elliot securing the best results at the Martinsville Spring race in March, followed by a Texas win in May. Elliot remained the only driver to win races in the regular season, as Kyle Larson and William Byron only secured triumphs in the Chase this year.
Then came the big pivot, the Chase fight. Kyle Larson, Chase Elliot, and William Byron qualified for the Chase, with Alex Bowman missing out. This is where Larson and his crew chief, Cliff Daniels, turned the No. 5 garage’s season around.
Jeff Gordon admired the bond the pairing shares as they were the key formula behind Hendrick Motorsports’ 16th title win.
“You know, I mean, they clicked right away when they got together, and we put Cliff and Kyle together,” the Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman proudly boasted. “So, you know, it’s been an amazing, you know, just journey to watch them not only take off fast, but also just be able to continue to build a relationship, the trust that they have in one another and the leadership that they bring to the team. And, you know, you can never count those guys out.”
Over the past six years of his time at Hendrick Motorsports, Cliff Daniels has been the yin to Kyle Larson’s yang. The driver-crew chief pairing has won both of Larson’s previous titles in 2021 and 2025. The 2026 season was not a new challenge for the pair, who had clinched two titles before, although they knew it was an uphill battle.
When Larson charged for the title in 2021 and 2025, he dominated the season and delivered consistent results over the two campaigns, respectively, which made the 2026 regular season slump an unprecedented title-contention blockage for the No. 5 garage.
However, working closely with Larson from 2020 to 2026, Daniels ensured the driver trusted his instincts and decisions. His key strategy for the 2026 season was to overlook the victory drought and focus on executing one strong race at a time. Knowing that the new format rewards consistent results, Daniels knew sweeping stage points was the ultimate solution to fight the regular season slump.
He convinced the garage that the team, in fact, has pace and performance but has suffered simply because of poor execution or certain fluke setbacks like late flat tires at Indianapolis and Nashville. It reflected in Larson’s results as the driver won three out of the final nine Chase races and delivered a sensational points-scoring average when it mattered most.
Larson turned his winless 51-race victory drought into a dominant Chase battle where he won his first-ever Talladega win while suffering from occasional setbacks like Phoenix and Martinsville. However, his ability to collect stage points helped his Championship tally, as he entered the final round with a 67-point cushion over Christopher Bell and a 70-point gap over Denny Hamlin.
All the No.5 driver needed was one clean stage result to secure his third Cup Series crown, and he achieved it within the first stage of the Homestead-Miami finale.
Larson’s 51-race winless streak, paired with the coveted team’s most disastrous regular-season slump so far, made it seem impossible to dream about a title win, but Jeff Gordon’s title-winning driver-crew chief duo delivered when it mattered most. Kyle Larson now joins the club of 7 other Championship winners with three title wins to their names (Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Tony Stewart, and Joey Logano).