Hendrick Motorsports has pretty much figured it out. So has Joe Gibbs Racing. Penske? Not so much. Despite winning all three championships in the Next-Gen car era (Joey Logano two, Ryan Blaney one), Penske and Ford have simply not been competitive with Hendrick and Gibbs. And that says more about NASCAR’s present point system than anything else. What’s more, don’t expect things to change much in 2025.
Hendrick, with its four-car stable of emerging super star Kyle Larson, established veteran Chase Elliott who, at 29, is three years younger than Larson but has a Cup championship and nine years experience on the circuit; Williams Byron, one of three or four of the top young talents racing Cup; and Alex Bowman who, frankly, needs to get his act together to keep from being the weak link, is still the team to beat.
And only one other organization, Gibbs, is in a position to challenge Hendrick. Like Hendrick, Gibbs has the people, resources, analytics and engineering to compete at Hendrick’s level on a weekly basis. And it’s drivers can match Hendrick wheel-to-wheel.
Denny Hamlin is in his 20th season, has 54 wins and is one of the most prepared and cerebral racers in the sport. Christopher Bell, a maturing talent who, using the OGS competition index as a measure, ranked second only to Larson last year with 584 points, is at or near Hamlin’s level. Ty Gibbs ranks with Byron as one of NASCAR’s ascending talents. Only newcomer Chase Briscoe, who replaces the retired Martin Truex, has yet to prove himself.
Penske should be competitive with the other two but despite the three championships, it isn’t. Logano was a legitimate champion in 2022, the only time NASCAR and OGS agreed on the top spot, and Blaney also ran well. That despite the fact Ford felt is was at a disadvantage with the new car. Austin Cindric, the third Penske driver, has never made much of a contribution and is a younger version of Bowman.
The OGS competition index shows how Penske has struggled. In 2022, the first year with the Next-Gen car, the three Penske drivers totaled 802 points. In 2023, that dropped to 514. Penske rebounded some in 2024 with its redesigned car, but still had only 743 points. That compared with 1656 for Hendrick and 1456 for Gibbs.
Even taking into account that Penske has only three cars compared to four for the other two, those totals are disturbing. In 2022, Penske was 423 points behind Hendrick and 428 behind Gibbs. In 2023, it was 1,001 points behind Hendrick and 743 behind Gibbs. And in 2024, while it’s performance improved a bit, Penske was still 913 points behind Hendrick and, again, 743 behind Gibbs.
Essentially, the Penske cars ran poorly on NASCAR’s intermediate tracks (ovals more than a mile and less than two and one-half miles in length for our purposes) That was very apparent in 2023 when the three Penske cars combined for just 187 OGS competition index points, less than six individual drivers by themselves. That included Larson (360) and Byron (321) from Hendrick and Hamlin (326) and Martin Truex (209) from Gibbs.
Penske made dramatic improvement on the intermediate tracks in 2024, but with both Hendrick and Gibbs far ahead technically from the start and continuing to improve each year, the gap between those two teams and Penske continues to widen.
Hendrick is Led by Larson, by far the most dominant driver of the Next-Gen era. After a relatively slow start (by his standards) in 2022, when his 439 OGS competition index points placed him third, 34 points behind Logano, the 2022 season leader, Larson has simply crushed the competition. He led the OGS competition index in 2023 with 643 points and was first again last year with 739. That totals 1,851 points, almost as many as Penske’s entire team for the same three year period.
“I would say in 2022, the first year with the Next-Gen car, we were kind of a little bit off,” Larson told hendrickmotorsports.com before the start of this season. “But I feel like we learned a lot and in 2023 we were really strong, really fast.
“I feel like we’ve done a great job in the Next-Gen era,” Larson continued. “I haven’t looked at the stats of the other top guys, but last year we had six wins, led a ton of laps, won a ton of stages. I don’t know if anybody else has had a season like that in the Next-Gen era. News flash – they haven’t.
So, as we look ahead to Daytona and the 2025 season, and with Hendrick and Gibbs clearly established as the teams to beat, who will be the most competitive drivers of the new year? Let’s take a stab at it:
1-Kyle Larson: Larson is dominant on the short and intermediate tracks and in his prime. He will be extremely difficult to beat.
2- Tyler Reddick: This is a bit of a long shot but if Reddick can improve his abysmal short track record he could push Larson. Reddick (334 points), and not Larson (271), was the most competitive driver on the intermediate ovals in 2024.
3-Denny Hamlin: At 44, some think his best years are behind him and he’s going through some changes at Gibbs, but this guy still can take a competitive car to the front.
4-.Christopher Bell: Bell made a huge leap from 2023 to 2024 and has long been considered a top talent. At 30 he is starting to peak and if he can continue to build on 2024, he will be tough.
5-William Byron: Byron is young and talented, but fell off a bit in 2024 after a strong run in 2023 when he finished second to Larson in points, just 44 behind. He needs more consistency.
6-Ryan Blaney: Despite Logano’s two championships, Blaney, and not Logano, is Penske’s most competitive driver. He and his crew struggled with the Next-Gen car in 2022 while Logano started hot, but Blaney has continued to get better; Logano has gotten worse.
7-Chase Elliott: Elliott is only 29 and has a NASCAR championship, but something seems just a little off with this team.
8-Ty Gibbs: At 22, Gibbs is the youngest of the sport’s leading drivers but he is good enough to eventually challenge Larson. Not this year though.
9-Chris Buescher: Buescher has had a quiet career but until he signed with RFK Racing, he never had a good car. RFK, with technical assistance from Ford, has gotten better every year. So has Buescher.
10-Joey Logano: Logano has been called the most undeserving champion in NASCAR history, but that’s NASCAR’s fault, not his. He played by their rules and won and, according to the OGS competition index was more competitive than people give him credit for.
In the finale of this series, we will look at some of the top teams which aren’t part of the Big Three.
