One of the most unusual things about the 2017 NASCAR season to date is that the big dogs of the sport aren’t doing as well as expected so far.
Neither Hendrick Motorsports nor Joe Gibbs Racing has won one of the first six races of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
The last time that happened was way back in 1994, when Terry Labonte broke the winless streak in the seventh race of the season at North Wilkesboro, where he drove his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to victory.
Last year, these two teams combined to win 18 of 36 points races.
This year, they’ve combined to go 0 for 6.
And although their situation hasn’t gotten as much attention, Stewart-Haas Racing has had a significant performance drop off since Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500 and Kevin Harvick dominated but didn’t win at Atlanta.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Hendrick Motorsports
So far, Hendrick drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne have combined for no victories, four top-five finishes, and seven top-10 finishes.
Elliott is second in points, Kahne 12th, Johnson 14th and Earnhardt 25th. That’s an average of 13.25.
In terms of laps led, the four Hendrick drivers have been out front for 212 of 1,808 laps run so far. That’s 11.73 percent.
Joe Gibbs Racing
At JGR, the situation has some similarities to what’s going on at Hendrick. Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suarez have a total of no victories, three tops fives and seven top 10s.
Busch ranks sixth in points, Hamlin 16th, Suarez 21st and Kenseth 22nd, for an average of 16.25.
As a team, JGR has led 441 laps, equal to 24.39 percent of the laps run so far.
Stewart-Haas Racing
SHR kicked the season off with Kurt Busch’s huge Daytona 500, but since then the bright spots have been few. Busch, Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Danica Patrick collectively have one victory, two top fives and seven top 10s.
Bowyer is eighth in points, Harvick 10th, Busch 19th and Patrick 29th for an average of 16.5 — nearly identical to JGR’s average.
The laps-led numbers are a little more complex. SHR has led 344 laps or 19.03 percent of the total run this hear. But 342 of those 344 laps led belonged to Harvick in the first two races of the season. He hasn’t led since.
Busch led only one lap – the last one – in the Daytona 500 and one lap in the five races since. Bowyer and Patrick, meanwhile, haven’t led all year.
