There were positive showings from Hendrick Motorsports in New Hampshire, with Chase Elliott and William Byron making big strides, though there is still room for improvement. They have big ambitions, and for those to materialize, they need to be even better, as Elliott noted before the race.
Advertisement
Byron carried the flag for the team in New Hampshire, guiding them to a third-place finish. Elliott, meanwhile, clawed back from a 27th-place qualifying misstep to claim fifth. Kyle Larson pocketed stage points in both segments before sliding to seventh in the closing laps.
It was a feather in the team’s cap, marking the first time in a decade that HMS placed three cars inside the top 10 at New Hampshire.
Elliott broke into the top 20 by the end of the opening stage and surged to seventh at the close of Stage 2. He held steady inside the top 10 through the final stage, crossing the line in fifth, his third top-five in 12 attempts at the track.
Although he admitted he needs to mix it up more often at the sharp end, Elliott compared the outing to the team’s performance at Gateway in the Round of 12, where he had finished third behind Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe.
After the race, Elliott stressed the need to raise the bar if they hope to go toe-to-toe with winner Ryan Blaney and Team Penske. He said, “Just hate I put us in those holes. It’s a great day for sure, to battle back up through there and call our way back up into the mix, but you hate to have to do that and hate to have to put yourself in those positions.”
The Hendrick driver praised his pit crew for digging deep after a stall and credited crew chief Alan Gustafson, whose quick calls kept them in the thick of the fight. He also pointed to the final stage decision to stay out during green-flag stops as the turning point that handed him key track position.
Even so, he conceded, “Certainly, didn’t have anything for Ryan and those guys. Congrats to him, (he) did a great job. And (we) got to step up a little bit, I think, to catch them, but certainly competitive to the rest.”
All three HMS drivers remain above the cutline with Kansas and the Charlotte Roval left in the Round of 12. Byron, among all the HMS drivers, holds the biggest cushion at 47 points, Larson sits 41 clear of ninth, and Elliott stands seventh, 14 points to the good.
