Just one week ago, Hendrick Motorsports looked like it had finally found its footing. Chase Elliott’s win at Martinsville in March had snapped a six-race Chevrolet drought to open 2026. And then he backed it up with a second victory at Texas Motor Speedway, holding off Denny Hamlin by 0.407 seconds at the flag. So, HMS was back, Elliott was the sport’s hottest driver, and the organisation’s slow start was just an early blip. But then came Watkins Glen, and now, the story looks completely different.

The numbers from Sunday are staggering. For the first time since Sonoma in 2005, nearly 21 years ago, not one of the organisation’s four cars finished inside the top 20 on a road course. And the lineup then read Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Brian Vickers, and Kyle Busch.

This time around, defending Cup champion Kyle Larson finished 23rd as HMS’s best-placed driver. Chase Elliott, fresh off two wins, crossed in 24th. Alex Bowman managed 25th. But Nobody had a worse afternoon than William Byron, who was buried in 36th, three laps down.

After qualifying 13th and looking like HMS’s best shot, Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet was spun at the bus stop by Chris Buescher and suffered a broken right-rear toe link that required extensive repairs, dropping him four laps down. The race further dropped him out of the top 10 in the standings, slipping from 10th to 12th, and he now sits just 32 points above the playoff cut line entering one of the most unforgiving stretches of the regular season.

In another stat that shows just how completely the weekend fell apart, Watkins Glen marked the first time since the 2023 Martinsville playoff race, already remembered as one of the rare low points of HMS’s modern era, that the organisation failed to score a single stage point across the entire event.

This comes after, from 2018–2023, HMS won five consecutive Cup races at Watkins Glen, the longest streak by any single organisation at that track in modern NASCAR history. And three of the four current HMS drivers (Elliott twice, Larson twice, Byron once) were responsible for those wins. The org even leads when it comes to Watkins Glen wins all-time, and by a wide margin. HMS has 11 Cup victories at the Glen, across six different drivers going back to Tim Richmond in 1986.

Moreover, HMS’s 31 all-time road course Cup wins are the most of any organisation. Not to forget that since the beginning of 2025, Elliott has the fourth-best average finish on road courses (9.57). And his seven career Cup wins on road courses rank third all-time (Jeff Gordon nine, Tony Stewart eight) and lead active drivers.

Specifically, in the Next Gen era on serpentine tracks, Elliott is tied for the most top-five finishes (11), tied for the third-most top 10s (15), and ranks fourth in average finish (10.30). The org itself leads the Cup Series in road course poles (six), top fives (30), top 10s (44), and average finish (14.41) in the Next Gen era.

All that shows is a resume that hasn’t produced the results.

Kyle Larson is still stuck in a winless streak that now extends to 36 races, his longest drought since joining the team. On the other hand, Alex Bowman missed four races earlier in the season after developing vertigo at COTA in March, with substitutes Anthony Alfredo and Justin Allgaier filling in across Phoenix, Las Vegas, Darlington, and Martinsville. While he has since returned, he has already lost significant ground in the standings.

Nothing seems to be going right as of now.

One reason is, of course, having to adapt to a new Chevrolet body, with tweaks to the durable Camaro’s aerodynamics that made their debut this season. President Jeff Andrews had shared after the Martinsville how the adjustment period continues with “still a lot of work left to do”.

Could HMS stars salvage themselves at the Coke 600?

Writing off Hendrick Motorsports ahead of the Coca-Cola 600 would still be premature. After all, HMS is the all-time leader in Coke 600 wins (12), poles (13), top fives (40), top 10s (64), and laps led (3,832) in the crown jewel event, and leads NASCAR across all Charlotte races with 21 wins, 19 poles, and 6,077 laps led.

The team’s campus in Concord is almost visible from the track. So, this is, as close to literally as it gets, a home race, where Larson remains the biggest wildcard.

Larson completely obliterated the field in 2021, leading 327 laps and sweeping all four stages in what was not just a Coke 600 win but the record-breaking 269th victory in organisation history. His speed always tends to resurface here, and with the Indy 500 now off the table for Larson this year, he arrives at Charlotte without previous distraction.

Again, William Byron may quietly be the most dangerous of the four. Last year, Byron led a race-high 283 laps, swept the first three stages, and looked unstoppable, that is, until Ross Chastain, who had started 40th in a backup car, passed him with six laps to go to steal the trophy.

Byron’s own words afterwards were blunt: “It’s just frustrating. Don’t really have the words for it.”

He has unfinished business here, and that kind of hunger tends to be loud at Charlotte.

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