When it comes to Hendrick Motorsports’ struggles throughout the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, it’s easy to point to Kyle Larson’s losing streak, which dates back to May 2025. It’s also easy to point to Chase Elliott’s lack of a top 10 finish since May, and the fact that Alex Bowman would be nowhere near the playoff picture even if he hadn’t missed four races due to vertigo.
But perhaps the easiest way to illustrate those struggles is by looking at William Byron’s season.
Yes, Hendrick has struggled to adapt to the new Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 body. But Larson’s form isn’t much different from what it was the second half of 2025, when he basically backed into another championship. He’s still led the second-most laps this year, and most of his 46-race win drought actually came in 2025 (24 races).
Elliott has won twice and sits sixth in points, but he’s been about a sixth-place driver over the past three or four years anyway. So there’s really nothing super alarming here.
But what in the world is going on with the No. 24 team?
Byron is the only driver who qualified for the Championship 4 in 2023, 2024, and 2025. He led over 1,000 laps in two of those three seasons. He topped the series in laps led and won the regular season championship in 2025 following his second consecutive Daytona 500 win.
This year, he’s 318 points out of the points lead with four races remaining on the regular season schedule, meaning that with 76 points on the table in each race (304 total), he’s already been mathematically eliminated, with that elimination officially coming 34 days before the regular season is set to conclude at Daytona International Speedway.
He’s 12th in the point standings, 88 points above the cut line, and he’s only 15th in laps led, which places him behind part-time driver Corey Heim, who has run just eight of 22 races, in that category. He has suddenly been the epitome of mediocrity after having been the most consistent championship-contending frontrunner in the series over the past three years.
The good news is that he should still qualify for the playoffs, and all playoff drivers are guaranteed to start the postseason within 100 points of the leader after the post-regular season standings reset, which is the lone reset of the year under NASCAR’s new “Chase” format. That effectively guarantees him at least a 218-point boost from where he’s at now.
The bad news is that the 12th place driver starts 80 points behind the leader, and nothing about the No. 24 Chevrolet’s speed this year has indicated that Byron can make up that kind of a deficit over someone like points leader Denny Hamlin over a 10-race stretch, much less while also passing and remaining ahead of 10 other drivers.
Even if he moves up a spot or two before the regular season ends, each spot (up to third) is only worth five extra reset points. Even a hot streak in the four races between now and then probably wouldn’t get him much higher than around 10th.
More good news is the fact that two of the four venues remaining on the regular season schedule, Iowa Speedway and Daytona, are tracks where Byron won a year ago, but perhaps that doesn’t matter either; even many of the tracks where he’s historically excelled have been tracks at which he’s been a non-factor in 2026.
While the focus has been on Larson, Byron’s own win drought is just one shy of 36 races, one full season, also.
Perhaps it’s not Larson’s win drought, Elliott’s summer slump, of Bowman’s decline that best underscores how much of a struggle the 2026 season has been for Hendrick Motorsports, but the fact that the reigning regular season champion was already eliminated from this year’s regular season points battle with more than a month remaining on the regular season calendar.
Iowa is scheduled to host the next race on the schedule following the off weekend, with the Iowa Corn 350 set to be shown live on USA Network starting at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 9. Can Byron and the No. 24 team get back to their winning ways at the site of their most recent trip to victory lane? Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don’t miss it!
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