Three championships in six seasons have placed Kyle Larson and Cliff Daniels among Hendrick Motorsports’ most successful pairings. Asked about their chemistry, Rick Hendrick looked back to two partnerships that helped define the organization’s championship history.
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Larson secured his third Cup Series title at Homestead on Sunday, clinching before the race had even reached its halfway point. The No. 5 Chevrolet collected seven stage points in the opening segment, enough to make the championship mathematically certain and deliver Hendrick Motorsports its record-extending 16th Cup crown.
Hendrick, who has now seen his organization win titles with five different drivers, admitted that the latest one was still huge to take in. Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, he reflected on what the milestone meant to everyone who had contributed to the team over four decades.
“I can’t really hardly believe it, you know. It’s when you win more than one of these things, it’s unreal, and now looking at 16. I’m just really proud of the organization and all the people that have built this thing along the way and all the drivers that have won championships. You know, this is for everybody that’s ever worked there,” Hendrick said.
The conversation then turned to the partnership between Larson and Daniels, who have delivered three titles together since the driver joined Hendrick in 2021. Asked about the chemistry that had developed over the last six years, Hendrick immediately brought up two pairings that helped define the team’s championship history.
“You know, it reminds me a lot of Jimmie and Chad, and also it reminds me a lot of Jeff and Ray. You know, it’s been really unreal how they click, and we’ve got a lot of our guys that are clicking that way, but, man, they’re at a confidence level. Unreal,” he said.
Those were not casual comparisons. Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus won seven Cup championships together, including five consecutive titles from 2006 through 2010 before adding another in 2013. Their No. 48 operation became the benchmark for sustained success in the modern era, and the partnership was central to Hendrick’s most dominant championship stretch.
Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham set an earlier standard. The pair won three championships in four seasons, taking the title in 1995, 1997 and 1998. Evernham’s influence went beyond race-day calls; his work helped turn the No. 24 team into the organization’s first modern dynasty and transformed pit-road execution.
Larson and Daniels are now being placed in that company after winning in 2021, 2025 and 2026. Their three titles have come across six seasons, rather than in a consecutive run like Johnson and Knaus’ five-year streak, but the achievement is striking in its own right.
Daniels has also reached a rare milestone: he became just the eighth crew chief in Cup history to win at least three championships, and only the second after Evernham to do so within his first seven seasons. That link is literal: Daniels served as Johnson’s No. 48 race engineer on the 2016 title team under Knaus.
The latest title was arguably the most revealing of the trio because it did not follow a straightforward route. Larson went through all 26 races of the regular season without a win and entered the Chase as the seventh seed, 55 points behind Denny Hamlin. The No. 5 team had speed, but the results were not matching it.
Instead of overhauling the operation, Daniels and Larson kept working through the issues and found their form when the championship was on the line.
Larson won at Gateway, Kansas, and Talladega during the Chase, turning a difficult regular season into a title run that put him in control well before Homestead’s checkered flag. The championship was clinched at the end of Stage 1, after Larson finished fourth and collected the seven points he needed.
He would eventually finish 12th, while Ryan Blaney took the race victory with a last-lap pass on Tyler Reddick. He also became the first back-to-back Cup champion since Jimmie Johnson in 2010.
The contrast between Larson’s three championships is something the driver himself has acknowledged. His first, in 2021, was the breakthrough season after joining Hendrick. The 2025 title came after a late-season surge and a third-place finish at Phoenix, while the 2026 crown followed a winless regular season and a dominant Chase. After the race, Larson credited Daniels’ leadership for keeping the team in position to attack when it mattered.
Hendrick has also noticed a change in the driver beyond the results. In a separate media interaction, he recalled meeting Larson during his Chip Ganassi Racing days, when the Californian was much quieter and less expressive. Since arriving at Hendrick, Hendrick believes he has become more comfortable in the spotlight, more engaged with fans and media, and more at ease with his status as a champion.
That evolution and the trust between driver and crew chief are what make Hendrick’s comparisons meaningful. A title can come from a fast car or a well-executed final race, but three championships in six years require a relationship that can withstand setbacks, rebuild confidence, and keep finding answers.
Hendrick has seen that with Gordon and Evernham, then Johnson and Knaus. Now, he sees the same kind of connection in Larson and Daniels.