With one race remaining before the NASCAR Cup Series playoff grid is finalized, Hendrick Motorsports is down to its last chance to get another team’s place clinched.
And it can only be one team, because there is only one postseason spot available. Hendrick Motorsports will either have two of its teams or three, but not all four, competing for the championship.
William Byron, who won for the fifth time Sunday afternoon at Watkins Glen, and Kyle Larson are already securely locked into the postseason. Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman are both in must-win situations going into Daytona (Saturday, 7 p.m. ET, NBC).
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“It’s sort of the agony sometimes of a four-car team when one of them does so well, has just an absolute flawless day, and I think with what William and the 24 and Rudy [Fugle] and that team did, it shows you that you just can’t make any mistakes,” Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, said on Sunday. “You have to, these days more than ever, be flawless, and it means that a whole weekend has got to come together from qualifying to restarts, pit road strategy, as well as pit stops and restarts.
“Those guys did it flawlessly. Unfortunately, we had some mistakes. The 48 (Bowman) was just off. I haven’t really downloaded with them. They were off. I’m not sure how they lost some of the track position.”
Behind Byron in the Watkins Glen finishing order was Bowman in 23rd place. Larson finished 26th after a speeding penalty and contact that resulted in a spin with Austin Dillon in the final corner coming to the checkered flag.
Bowman is 96 points below the playoff grid cutline, which is not mathematically possible to overcome. Adding insult to injury, if the No. 48 team had not been penalized 60 points earlier in the year for a greenhouse violation, Bowman would be 36 points out of a transfer spot. Bowman also missed three points races after breaking his back in a sprint car crash in the spring.
Elliott’s No. 9 team had the biggest blunder of the day by running out of fuel and causing a caution on lap 56. Elliott was told he would be good for two additional laps after going to the reserve, but that ended up being wrong.
“Bad information,” is what crew chief Alan Gustafson said over the radio after Elliott ran out of fuel and had to be pushed back to pit road. Elliott finished 32nd.
“Clearly a miscalculation with the 9 car and that was huge,” Gordon said. “He was stretching – he came in a little bit short the first stop, and so they were trying to stretch it to get closer on the strategy of the others. You always want to pad yourself here just in case there’s a lot of restarts at the end. The fuel just wasn’t there. It was really unfortunate.
“I haven’t talked to Kyle. I think it was the last section he was speeding on pit road and again that’s just a tiny little mistake, but it ended up being huge because I think they had a car that could compete with William and run 1-2 between those guys or battle it out between them.”
Elliott has missed seven races this season. Six came early in the year because of a snowboarding accident, and the seventh was in June when he was suspended for hooking Denny Hamlin at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The last time Hendrick Motorsports didn’t have all four cars in the postseason was 2020, when Jimmie Johnson failed to qualify in his final season. The last time Hendrick Motorsports last had only two cars championship-eligible was in 2016.