At Bristol, Henrick Motorsports had a pretty good outing. Kyle Larson won the race while breaking a long-standing HMS driver record and the rest of the team’s drivers also made the cut. With four drivers going into the Round of 12 HMS’ chances of bringing home the championship have gone up. Impressively, three of their drivers finished in the top 10, with William Byron ending up 17th. But is the picture as rosy as it appears?

Larson is leading the standings, but Alex Bowman is sitting on the elimination bubble. Byron, despite being 4th overall, had a tough race at Bristol, while Chase Elliott sits precariously in 7th, two places above the next cut-off line. Thus veteran driver Kevin Harvick believes the scene could turn bleak for HMS after the next playoff round.

Kevin Harvick talks about the HMS problem

Kyle Larson dominated in Bristol. He led a race-high 462 laps out of 500 surpassing Jeff Gordon’s 431 laps at Martinsville in 1997 for HMS. This was his fifth win of the season and first in the playoffs. He was followed by Chase Elliot who finished second while Alex Bowman’s ninth-place finish rounded off a near-perfect day for HMS. But Harvick raised doubts about the team’s ability to carry this momentum further and thinks two of their drivers may not make the next round.

On his Happy Hour podcast, on September 24, Harvick talked about the events at Bristol alongside host Kaitlyn Vincie. Talking about how William Byron was communicating on the radio, Vincie, Happy mentioned, “At one point, he was asking Rudy Fugle, like, ‘Are we good?’ Like, he didn’t even really know for certain if he was in a good point position to advance.”

Kevin Harvick was quick to back Vincie and said, “Yeah. And it’s crazy when you get out of that, when you get out of rhythm. And those guys started the year off being in a rhythm to win races and overcome things throughout the day, and maybe win some races over the last couple years that they shouldn’t win.”

Apart from Larson’s five wins, only Byron has been able to notch more than one win, finishing first in three races. Both Elliot and Bowman have one win to their names. As Kansas comes around there is also cause for concern given their history at the track. Larson has two wins in Kansas with two DNFs and an average finish of 12.3. Elliot is the only other HMS driver out of the current lot to have a win at the track (2018) and has an average finish of 10.2.

Bowman and Byron are both yet to win at Kansas in 17 and 13 starts respectively. Their average finish on the track also doesn’t make for pleasant reading. Bowman has an average finish of 15.2 and Byron has 14.8. Harvick’s words raise more concerns as he added, “Now they’re out of rhythm, and it doesn’t seem like they’re able to put themselves in a position to where they can find the speed.”

Havrick then picked Byron for elimination despite his current placement of fourth in the standings. He said, “And you know, I just haven’t seen a lot out of the 24, and I actually have him on my list of being out after this round.” But that was not all. Harvick also said that he doesn’t see Elliott making it to the Round of 8.

Harvick said, “For me, it’s the 99 (Daniel Suarez), the 24 (Byron), the 14 (Chase Briscoe) and the 9 (Elliot). You know, I put the 9 in there. They did good at Bristol.”

Elliott enters the next round of eliminations seventh in the standings with a small six-point gap between him and potential elimination. The margins get tighter as the rounds advance and given that the likes of Chase Briscoe and Daniel Suarez remain in contention, he will be looking nervously over his shoulders. Still, Harvick’s prediction that these four drivers, including two from HMS will be out, is a little surprising given their performances this season.

But according to Harvick, he hasn’t seen enough in them to see them going through to the next round. The former Stewart Haas Racing driver mentioned that the names he predicts will go out have been “decent” without being spectacular.

He added, “I just think that you’re gonna have to make some noise and you’re gonna have to show that you’re a contender leading laps and running up front as you get closer to the Round of 8 and the Round of 4. But they just haven’t shown that they have what the 5 (Kyle Larson) has to be able to do it. Bristol wound up being a pretty good day for them because they just hung out and qualified well and put themselves in a position to have a decent day to get through the first round.”

Still, while Harvick’s claims about Briscoe and Suarez may hold weight, his prediction that Elliot and Byron will be out despite being in playoff places raises a few eyebrows. Both the drivers have been consistent and a performance more or the same as the one in Bristol could be enough for them to increase their chances of making it to the next round.

One thing to remember is the fact that Rick Hendrick’s wife has an ask from the drivers on account of her 40th anniversary with her husband. Linda Hendrick requested all the drivers from the team that, as a gift, she wants all of them to make it into the final round of the playoffs. What that will mean is that the 4 drivers from HMS will finish P1-4, which has never been done before. And speaking of things that have never been done before, let’s dive into all the records that the current lineup of HMS has broken.

The record-breaking achievements of HMS

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Imagine winning the Cup Series championship in the first attempt with a team. That’s exactly what Kyle Larson pulled off by winning the 2021 Cup Series Championship during his first full-time year with the team. The record came paired with winning the most number of races in a single year by winning 10 races in a NASCAR season. Richard Petty won 10 races in a row between August and October in 1967 and, Tony Stewart won 10 races in 2011, and now Larson matches the record.

Although Kevin Harvick believes that Byron might make it out by the next round, it helps to remember that William Byron became the youngest driver to win the pole position at the Daytona 500 in 2019. Last year, he also managed to win 5 races in a single season, which should be enough for him to go into Kansas with confidence. Alex Bowman’s win at Dover in 2021 marked the first time HMS drivers finished 1-2-3-4 in a race.

Chase Elliott also adds to their fame panel as he became the youngest driver to win on a road course in the Cup Series at Watkins Glen in 2018. Road courses are his thing, as he has won four consecutive road course races, tying the record for the most consecutive wins on road courses. And being a Cup Series Champion himself, Elliott won the championship in 2020, becoming the third-youngest driver to do so.

With such records to their names and current performances, it seems Hendrick Motorsports drivers will have a good shot at making the next round and going even beyond. b\But only time will tell what will happen. Considering everything, do you think that Linda Hendrick will get her the gift that she wants from the drivers? Share your thoughts in the comments below.