With Ryan Blaney’s victory last week at Nashville, Team Penske became the first team to land all drivers – including their partner team Wood Brothers Racing – into the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
But it’s Hendrick Motorsports that remains atop the championship standings heading into Sunday’s Firekeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway (2 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) – and one of the former series champs in the four-driver Hendrick lineup is hoping to finally secure his place in the upcoming Playoffs with a win.
Chase Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion, had a tremendously good start to his career on the two-mile Michigan high-banks scoring runner-up finishes in the first three races he ran there (2016-18). And surprisingly considering that start, the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has never won at the track. He finds himself, however, primed for a trophy-hoist this weekend.
Elliott is the highest ranked driver without a victory this season – fifth in the championship standings with top-10 finishes in half the races (seven). At Michigan International Speedway, he earned an amazing 10 top-10 finishes in his first 11 starts. But he hasn’t had any in the three races afterward – his worst showing 36th in 2023 was a result of being collected in a crash only 34 laps into the race.
Mention Michigan to Elliott and his face lights up. It’s absolutely a track where he feels legitimately optimistic to score that first victory of 2025. He is the only driver to finish among the top-20 in all 14 races this season and has the third best average finish (11.5) in the series.
“It’s always good to go to Michigan and have a good run,” Elliott said. “It’s certainly changed a lot over the years, just with how the cars have changed. But the race track itself is the most consistent place I’ve ever seen for a racetrack that has those hard winters.”
Elliott’s teammate, the driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, William Byron remains atop the championship standings, extending his lead over teammate Kyle Larson to 48 points. Hendrick Motorsports is the only team to have at least one of their four cars finish in the top-five in all 14 races this year.
Larson is tied with Team Penske’s Joey Logano for most wins (three) at Michigan among active drivers, but his last was in 2017.
The last four Michigan races have been won by different drivers – three of them in Fords (Chris Buescher, Kevin Harvick and Blaney). The exception is defending race winner, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick in a Toyota. He too is looking for his first victory of the year, after claiming the 2024 regular season title.
To that point, the intensity is certainly picking up now that the regular season is more than half-way over. Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch – the 2011 Michigan winner – sits on the Playoff cutoff line in 16th place with five drivers within 13 points of him heading into the weekend.
Interesting to note, no Michigan native has ever won at his “home track.” RFK Racing owner/driver Brad Keselowski has three runner-up finishes. Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones, who earned his second top-10 of the season last week, has claimed top-10 finishes at Michigan in two of the last three races.
Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar is coming off his second runner-up finish this year – tying a career best. He led three laps and finished 10th in his Michigan NASCAR Cup Series debut last year.
The top-32 drivers in the standings have qualified for the inaugural “In-Season Challenge” program and the next three races – at Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono – will seed the brackets. The first of five races for the In-Season Challenge is June 28 at Atlanta’s newly renamed, EchoPark Speedway.
Practice followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying gets underway at 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday (Amazon Prime, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
-NASCAR Newswire
