Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman Won’t Get Special Treatment From HMS as Per Jeff Gordon, at Least Not Just Yet

With William Byron winning 4 races this year, Kyle Larson winning 2, and Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman having won none, the situation at Hendrick Motorsports could get a bit trickier as the regular season heads toward a close finish. Because Jeff Gordon recently opened up on the state of affairs within the organization, speaking about whether or not they’re cutting away resources from Byron and Larson to help the other two drivers to make the cut.

In a recent interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Gordon admitted that as an organization, HMS isn’t at a point where they have to have those conversations, the one in which they have to decide on a strategy of putting in more for the #9 and the #48.

But Gordon also claimed that if things didn’t change, they could reach that point very soon.

Jeff Gordon claims things haven’t changed at HMS yet, but they may soon

Speaking about the subject of HMS shifting their attention and resources primarily for Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman’s playoff chances, taking some away from William Byron and Kyle Larson, Gordon insisted that as of this moment, they are simply focusing on putting fast racecars on the track and pulling off “a complete race together.”

“I think we know what our race teams and our drivers and our crew chiefs are capable of when things fall in place. So I’ve got complete faith that they can do it in the coming up weekend or the weekend after that or the weekend after that. But there’s not big conversations yet where we start going, ‘Okay guys, now we’ve got to start helping out the #48 or the #9, we’ve got to get them into the playoffs,'” he described.

“I know the crew chiefs and the way they communicate, and they’re talking about it a little bit here and there. But we have not gone into meetings to strategize on how we’re going to do that just yet.”

“But we might be a few races away from those conversations.”

With two drivers currently below the cutline, will attention and resources get shifted to the No. 9 and No. 48 teams for the final seven races of the regular season?

❌ @JeffGordonWeb says not yet.

More from @TeamHendrick’s Vice Chairman on #TMDNASCAR → https://t.co/qesEcbI9Hq pic.twitter.com/7hiHtAHd1E

— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 13, 2023

Chase Elliott will run two races on Pocono weekend

Even though there are two road courses ahead in the schedule in the regular season which Chase Elliott can capitalize on to get into the playoffs given his history on road courses, that moment, that win could also come in Pocono for the #9 driver. This is because it was recently announced that Elliott will be running the Xfinity race later this month at Pocono Raceway.

The #9 driver will pilot the #17 racecar on July 22nd and this could end up helping him figure out the racetrack a little bit better than his competition which could eventually help him land the first win of the season on the following day.

Of course, Bowman too needs a win, but the #48 driver is ahead of his teammate. And in any way, someone like Chase Elliott not making the playoffs will be a big disappointment not just for the driver, but for Hendrick Motorsports as well.