It took reigning Cup Series champion Kyle Larson 28 races to get his first win in the defence of his title. While the winless streak has now been broken, the 51-race-long winless run says a lot more about the lack of performance by the Hendrick Motorsports-run Chevrolets than Larson himself.
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Toyota has clearly been the dominant force in the Cup Series, and Chevrolet hasn’t looked like they would even get close. But Dale Earnhardt Jr. is asking the important questions regarding how HMS finally broke Larson’s winless run. Dale Jr. was at HMS when Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were his teammates, and both were fighting for championships. There’s an element of competitiveness within the team under the same roof, but the resurgence this year became possible due to the cultural change at HMS.
“The Next Gen era, it has presented so much higher of a need for all of us to be fully open. Anything, from our brake package bills and how we’re gonna cool the brakes to car setups and air pressures and car builds, coupled with the fact that, newsflash, it has been a really tough year for Hendrick this year,” said Cliff Daniels on Dale Jr. Download. “We’ve had to lean so much more into each other and just put in all of the collective intelligence, the experience, everything that we can together to dig out of the performance hole that we’ve been in, that we’re as close now as we’ve ever been.”
When Dale Jr. was an HMS driver, each team was housed in a different building, something that changed in 2017 with all HMS teams coming under one roof. According to Daniels, this move was a turning point, but the information sharing across the 2026 season has been unlike ever before, simply because of how much the HMS Chevys have struggled.
“I’m coming at that from a place of just needing help and wanting to expand all of the collective intelligence that we have. Hey, here’s what I think the vision for the five-car build for Bristol should be, and for, you know, Kansas should be. What do you guys think? What’s your approach? What do you guys think are moves that make sense to stack up for aero balance of this track versus another track?” said Daniels. “And putting all of that together has been really important for us this year to lean into one another and to share that difference of opinion or perspective.”
Things were bad for HMS this year. After the end of the Brickyard 400, it was Carson Hocevar, the leading Chevy driver in the points standings placed 5th. Be it the new Camaro body or trying to reinvent themselves, the HMS cars didn’t have the speed or performance fans were used to. Yet despite the open garage culture, there are differentiating factors that separate No. 5 team from the rest of the three teams.
“It doesn’t mean that all of our cars are built the same,” Daniels added. “But it means that at least we’re being very transparent with the idea for an approach and, of course, those little things that you have to put together to execute it. If there’s anything that we’re working in a world of black and white, or we’re working in the gray, or are some of these very fundamental items that you would build into your car for the weekend? Having that be presented on the front side just helps everyone see that much more clearly what their approach can be.”
While the Chevrolets haven’t been able to find the pace, Kyle Larson himself has managed to keep up with the leaders on most occasions. Larson is currently second in points, nine points behind leader Denny Hamlin, but his season could have been a lot better.
Larson has 11 top-five finishes, and only one of them is when he ended up in victory lane. Larson has also led the second-most number of laps after Hamlin at 838. But the number he has missed out on is wins.
Larson dominated in Bristol; he led for 284 laps, and yet at the end he lost out to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs. In Kansas, he led 78 and went up to first on the track’s all-time lap leaders list. And yet came out with a second-place finish behind 23XI’s Tyler Reddick. Even early in the Chase, at Darlington, Larson had a shot at winning and even led 99 laps, but he got nothing more than a P5.
It’s been a season of near misses or complete misses, with 3 DNFs to add to all the other problems that Larson has faced in 2026.
While Larson is fighting for the title, his teammates Chase Elliott and William Byron sit 11th and 15th, respectively. Elliott is 93 points away from Hamlin and still has an outside shot at winning with eight races to go. But Daniels believes that even if the HMS drivers are title contenders fighting against each other, the transparency will continue.
“If I’m gonna be racing Rudy(Fugle, Byron’s crew chief) and Alan(Gustafson, Elliott’s crew chief) going into Homestead, I’m still gonna want their help,” said Daniels. “And I think they’re still gonna want my help to know that we’re maximizing everything that we can to go compete against those guys that have been fast and they’ve been tough all year. I just don’t see a way out of that without the help from those guys as well. And I’m sure they share the thought as well. So it’s a different page than probably what you’ve seen of Hendrick in the past, but it’s a really healthy page. And there’s a very high level of transparency.”
Transparency is the way to go at HMS, as they clearly understand the fight isn’t inside their team garage. Joe Gibbs Racing might have an edge, but their team dynamics are different to that of Hendrick Motorsports. And do not count Team Penske out of the picture; Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are the best championship pairing of the Next-Gen era.
The win at Gateway was a shot in the arm for the No. 5 team and HMS camp, but they clearly have a lot of work to do in the upcoming eight races.