19 Championships, 539 race wins and an enduring legacy. These are the combined achievements of Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series. While HMS dominates with 14 of the 19 championships, both teams have made their mark on the 21st century, proving to be the team to beat whenever push comes to shove. And despite Team Penske reigning in three consecutive championships in the last 3 years, NASCAR insiders feel this year it might just be JGR v HMS.
After the race at Dover Motor Speedway saw the top-6 finishers come from either JGR or HMS, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi couldn’t help but emphasize just how dominant the Joe Gibbs and Rick Hendrick-led organizations have been this season. As it stands, the championship feels like it’s theirs to lose.
Can anyone stop HMS and JGR?
At Dover, it felt like no one could even come close to JGR and HMS. Rick Hendrick’s #9 Chase Elliott started on pole, finished 6th, led for the most laps at 238, and won stage 1. Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs’ Christopher Bell won stage 2 and led 67 laps (joint-second most) but finished 18th after a late spin saw him drop down the order. Then, the winner was JGR #11 Denny Hamlin, who fought off challenges from Bell and JGR #19 Chase Briscoe late in the race while leading 67 laps en route to his second consecutive win at the Monster Mile and fourth of the season. This dominance is now reflected in the regular season standings.
On the Teardown Podcast, NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi opened up on how this power shift has affected the points standings. Jeff Gluck noted, “We clearly see that the Hendrick Cars and the Gibbs Cars consistently are the top teams. So look at the standings, right? You… you still have three, and now Chase Elliott… by the way, with William Byron getting in trouble, is taking over the points lead.”
Indeed, the points table recently saw a shakeup after Dover, with Chase Elliott overtaking the lead for Hendrick Motorsports after teammate William Byron was caught up in Christopher Bell’s late race wreck. Byron now trails Elliott by 16 points, while fellow Hendrick star Kyle Larson is 38 back and firmly entrenched in third. On the Joe Gibbs Racing side, Denny Hamlin’s 4th triumph of the season lifted him to fourth overall, just a single point behind Larson and within striking distance as the season intensifies. As the discussion noted, “Hamlin, he is moved up to fourth. He is thirty-nine back. So Hamlin is suddenly kind of in the mix now.”
Points battle’s heating up — Hendrick and Gibbs battling for that top spot! @jeff_gluck | @Jordan_Bianchi pic.twitter.com/aWqndvTEtx
— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) July 21, 2025
The statistical reality is straightforward: three Hendrick cars in the top positions, with Denny Hamlin rapidly closing the gap. Examining the last five races only solidifies this pattern. Hendrick and JGR cars have populated the majority of top-10 finishes, showing not just victory lane speed but week-to-week reliability, which is critical as teams position themselves for playoffs. Gluck added, “I’m not feeling as confident about [other contenders]… HMS and JGR dominate the field.”
While past seasons saw Team Penske, 23XI Racing, or Trackhouse interjecting regularly into the conversation, this summer’s run of results has solidified the two-team narrative. Excluding SVG’s road course dominance for Trackhouse Racing over the past two months as he racked up 3 wins, since Team Penske #12 Ryan Blaney‘s win at Nashville in June, only JGR and HMS have seen victory lane, with Hamlin winning twice, Briscoe at Pocono, and Elliott at Atlanta.
And while these two Chevy and Toyota teams are having a great time, their rival teams with the same OEM are struggling to keep pace.
NASCAR’s struggling teams
With Hendrick and JGR grabbing headlines and points, other teams are facing a new level of scrutiny around their 2025 prospects. Consistency is proving elusive for nearly every operation outside these two. Even 23XI Racing, a satellite team for JGR, and Richard Childress Racing, another Chevrolet outfit, seem to be way off the pace. While HMS and Chevrolet also have a collaboration, they work out of separate engine shops, and that difference is telling.
Richard Childress Racing once again left Dover Motor Speedway probably feeling like they could have done more. The #8 of Kyle Busch started well and worked his way to the top 10 until he inexplicably lost pace and faded back to mid-pack. Rowdy clawed his way to an 11th-place finish, marking his third consecutive top-15, but team owner Richard Childress was not happy with the car Busch had to drive. An on-board camera captured footage of Busch’s radio after the checkered flag was waved, and you could hear how frustrated Childress was as he radioed to Busch, saying, “Gotta get some racecars. We are in trouble. Period.”
Meanwhile, 23XI Racing, a team that made the Championship 4 with Tyler Reddick last year, is yet to get a number in its wins column. Even their average finishes have plummeted from 2024, as they had boasted an average finish of 14.9 last year compared to a dismal 19.7 in 2025. To be fair, rookie Riley Herbst is in their recently acquired third car, and he is still learning the ropes and pulling that average down, but Tyler Reddick remaining winless is certainly a concern.
The #45 driver even admitted after his 12th-place finish without any stage points at Dover, saying, “We’ve just been struggling a bit. We’re not our normal selves. Hard to say.” Tyler Reddick won last year’s regular season championship over Kyle Larson, and while he is in no major risk of missing the playoffs on points this year, the downfall does spark cause for concern within 23XI Racing.
As it stands, 23XI and RCR need to step up if they are to give any competition to their OEM colleagues. While 23XI still boasts the possibility of two of their cars, Reddick and Bubba Wallace, making the playoffs, RCR has none right now, and now we can only wait and see whether either of these teams usher in a turnaround. What do you think? Will smaller teams come back into the fray as the season ends? Or will JGR and HMS continue to dominate the NASCAR Cup Series? Let us know in the comments!
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