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Despite the Spotlight on Hendrick and Gibbs, Which Team Is Really Holding Most of the Cards This Season?

Jerry Bonkowski
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Indycar Series team owner Roger Penske during the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

So much attention has been placed on Team Hendrick and Joe Gibbs Racing this season, but they are not the best organizations overall when it comes to victory diversity.

Sure, JGR has five wins and Team Hendrick has four wins. But look a bit closer under the hood. While Christopher Bell has three wins and Denny Hamlin has two for JGR, their teammate Chase Briscoe has not reached victory lane this year. In fact, Briscoe’s best outings this season have been third place (once) and fourth place (four times).

And then there’s Team Hendrick. While William Byron (one win) and Kyle Larson (three wins) are one-two in the points, their teammates — Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman — remain winless.

Okay, we’ve kept you in suspense long enough. What is the only multi-car team to have all of its drivers reach victory lane in the first 14 races of the 2025 season? Believe it or not, it’s Team Penske!

That’s right. Even if it’s only one win apiece, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric have all visited victory lane, making Penske the only Cup team to have all its drivers win a race thus far.

But wait, there’s more: technically, Team Penske has all four of its affiliated drivers with wins in 2025 — if you count Josh Berry, whose Wood Brothers Racing team is a Penske affiliate that receives chassis and engines from the organization.

There’s no question that the Hendrick (20 top-fives) and JGR (18 top-fives) drivers have been more consistent overall than every other team — including Team Penske (11 top-fives, including Berry). But there appears to be a different mojo within the Penske camp this year.

Consider: Even in races they haven’t won, Blaney still has had arguably the fastest car of most of his opponents, including those who’ve ultimately wound up in victory lane. That’s in contrast to what the Penske trio have done in the Next Gen era, where the team typically doesn’t really get going until late in the regular season — usually between races 22 to 24 — and then start riding that momentum into and throughout the playoffs.

Don’t believe me? Which organization has won each of the last three Cup championships? Team Penske (Logano in 2022 and 2024, and Blaney in 2023), that’s who. How many of you have forgotten that little nugget?

And if you go way back to 2018, when Logano won his first Cup crown, the championship scorecard will have Team Penske as overall leader with four championships, while Team Hendrick has two (Chase Elliott in 2020 and Kyle Larson in 2021) and JGR rounds out the last seven seasons with just one championship — in 2019 by Kyle Busch, who isn’t even with the team anymore.

Blaney is off to a fast start, but Logano is pacing himself

After Sunday’s race in Nashville, Team Penske is definitely on an uptick. Blaney is a solid 7th, Logano moved up one spot to be right behind in 8th, and Cindric moved up two spots to 13th.

Admittedly, Logano has not had the greatest of starts to 2025, with just one win, two top-fives and four top-10s. But if there was ever a driver who paced himself during the regular season only to kick major butt in the playoffs, it’s the driver of the No. 22 Ford.

While Team Penske may trail Team Hendrick and JGR in overall wins thus far this season, the fact that all three of the Penske Boys have one win apiece — and overall better pace and consistency than in most of the past seven years — is a dangerous warning to their opponents.

Sure, Team Penske is off to a strong start with all three of its drivers, but wait until they hit their stride in the 10-race Cup playoffs. It’s not Roger’s guys that have to worry about themselves; it’s JGR, Hendrick and everyone else that best keep their focus on Team Penske, because they’re only getting started.

Post Edited By:Abhishek Ramesh

About the author

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski

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Jerry Bonkowski is a veteran sportswriter who has worked full-time for many of the top media outlets in the world, including USA Today (15 years), ESPN.com (4+ years), Yahoo Sports (4 1/2 years), NBCSports.com (8 years) and others. He has covered virtually every major professional and collegiate sport there is, including the Chicago Bulls' six NBA championships (including heavy focus on Michael Jordan), the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX-winning season, the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs World Series championships, two of the Chicago Blackhawks' NHL titles, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour debut, as well as many years of beat coverage of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA for USA Today. But Jerry's most notable achievement has been covering motorsports, most notably NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing and Formula One. He has had a passion for racing since he started going to watch drag races at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip (otherwise known as "Where the Great Ones Run!") in Hobart, Indiana. Jerry has covered countless NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA races and championship battles over the years. He's also the author of a book, "Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates", published in 2010 (and he's hoping to soon get started on another book). Away from sports, Jerry was a fully sworn part-time police officer for 20 years, enjoys reading and music (especially "hair bands" from the 1980s and 1990s), as well as playing music on his electric keyboard, driving (fast, of course!), spending time with Cyndee his wife of nearly 40 years, the couple's three adult children and three grandchildren (with more to come!), and his three dogs -- including two German Shepherds and an Olde English Bulldog who thinks he's a German Shepherd.. Jerry still gets the same excitement of seeing his byline today as he did when he started in journalism as a 15-year-old high school student. He is looking forward to writing hundreds, if not thousands, of stories in the future for TheSportsRush.com, as well as interacting with readers.

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