Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson from Hendrick Motorsports are leading the charge to win the regular-season championship. Despite Larson’s several wins, Elliott leads the points standings. Now, winning the regular season championship has numerous advantages. The most significant of these is the 15 bonus playoff points, thus while the two drivers are partners, they may turn on each other during the race. To be honest, NASCAR racing has always been like this.
According to Jeff Gordon, there is no actual animosity or rivalry between Elliott and Larson. Rather, he believes that their drivers have worked together greater than ever this season.
Hendrick Motorsports doesn’t mind a competitive edge between their drivers
The only instance where HMS drivers competed for a last-lap win came at the Daytona 500. William Byron managed to steal a win against his teammate Alex Bowman that day. However, with the knockouts now closing in, the dynamics of racing might change, and drivers may start to look out for themselves.
With Chase Elliott in the advantageous position and Larson breathing down his neck with just three points, the regular-season championship race is all but done. While people looking from the outside might see a brewing rivalry between the two, that’s not the case according to Gordon.
Ahead of the Brickyard 400 race, the vice chairman of HMS shared the dynamics of the drivers on the team. “I’ve seen our teams communicating and sharing information and working together more this year than I ever have. Just to me, it feels like because all the teams are having success, and all the teams are seeing the benefits of that amount of communication going back and forth.”
However, he shared that they do not expect the drivers to hold back in case they find themselves battling for a win on the racetrack. “I think it’s pretty clear at Hendrick how we expect teams and drivers to race against one another … We want to go race and race hard, but we want to come out the other end in one piece, and may the best team and the best driver get that regular season championship,” Gordon concluded.
It has to be noted that it’s not just the HMS driver in the running for the regular-season championship. With all the talks surrounding the HMS stars, this might allow someone from the Toyota camp to sneak a big result for them, bagging the all-important 15 bonus points.
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