ATLANTA, Ga. — The Toyota Cup Series drivers have won the majority of races this season, but Chase Elliott believes that the Chevrolet camp is closing the gap at a pivotal point in the schedule.
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He sees the amount of working taking place behind the scenes at Hendrick Motorsports, and he sees the results starting to translate to the race track. Now, the next step is parking in victory lane.
"I don't feel like we're exactly where we want to be, but I do feel like we're closer," Elliott told media members during a fundraising event in Atlanta. "Man, I wish you guys could see the amount of work and effort that goes in behind the scenes to try and get better each week at the shop.
"And it's just been a full team effort, which has honestly been a lot of fun to be a part of. I know the results haven't been what we want and what we expect, but I do feel like we'll get there. The boss loves to win, you know, and it's our job to go and make that happen."
Nineteen races into a season, it could be considered surprising that only one member of the Hendrick Motorsports stable has won a race. Elliott has two wins to his name while Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Kyle Larson all remain winless.
Bowman missed four races due to vertigo, and he has a best finish of third. Byron, who has at least two wins in every season of the Gen 7 era, only has four top-five finishes. Larson hasn't won a race since May 11, 2025.
The entire Chevrolet camp has dealt with a change to the body, which created a learning curve early in the season. Although many of these drivers are quick to push back against this excuse.
Still, multiple stretches of this season have featured Toyota drivers going on a run. Tyler Reddick won five of the first nine races this season. Denny Hamlin (Toyota), Ryan Blaney (Ford), Ty Gibbs (Toyota), and Elliott (Chevrolet) won the other four.
The spring featured four Chevrolet wins in a row with Carson Hocevar, Elliott, Shane van Gisbergen, and Daniel Suarez. It appeared that the Chevrolet camp had made some significant gains, but Hamlin shut that conversation down by winning three consecutive races. Corey Heim then won at San Diego to make it four in a row for Toyota drivers.
Van Gisbergen took Chevrolet back to victory lane at Sonoma Raceway but then Chase Briscoe won the first Cup Series race at Chicagoland Speedway since 2019. However, this race featured the best performance by Chevrolet and Hendrick Motorsports in quite some time.
William Byron swept the stage wins and led a race-high 94 laps. Kyle Larson raced inside the top three before a spin hurt his car's performance.
Elliott raced in the top 10 before ultimately finishing 11th overall. Alex Bowman qualified 12th and steadily made progress throughout the race. He finished fifth in what was his first top-five finish since Texas in early May.
"I think we're closer — we're not there — I do think it's been better," Elliott said. "I thought William... I thought Kyle looked really good too. Alex had a great last run.
"We kind of fell off, I thought, there towards the end of the race but yeah, I feel like all of us had some different moments of promise throughout the event last week, which I thought was good and certainly encouraging as we continue to press forward and know we're at least talking and thinking about the right things."
Hendrick Motorsports has yet to return to victory lane since Elliott's win at Texas Motor Speedway on May 3, but Elliott certainly sees progress as his team and the rest of the Chevrolet camp push to close the gap.
The progress comes at a fitting time for the group, considering that only seven races remain in the regular season. After that, the teams will begin the 10-race Chase that determines the season champion.
It's entirely possible that Elliott and all of Hendrick Motorsports could peak at the start of the Chase, which would put the team in position to make a late run and upset the Toyota dominance.
But don't ask Elliott to make this prediction just yet.
"I am very hopeful and optimistic that we can get where we need to go before September, October, you know, somewhere in there," Elliott said. "So yeah, this sport — and I learned this from Dad (Bill Elliott) over the years — it's a roller coaster.
"Things are gonna cycle around. That's just... we've seen it for years, right? And that's one thing that's probably never gonna change. So you hope you hit it at the right time on the up."
