Chase Briscoe and his SHR teammates have had their struggles in 2021(Photo: Getty Images)
There is little question that Hendrick Motorsports has been the top team in the NASCAR Cup Series over the last several weeks. At the same time, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have proven to be respectable adversaries when the entire season is taken into consideration. But one organization that is notably missing from list of worthy contenders at the top level of the sport is that of Stewart-Haas Racing.
It seems as if there has been a significant drop off for the team owned by former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart and businessman and Formula 1 team owner Gene Haas. But has there really been that significant of a downfall in the company’s performance so far in 2021 or does it just seem that way?
A look at the statistics from this season compared to those of last year does in fact indicated that SHR is not nearly as competitive as it was during the disjointed 2020 campaign. And while some might argue that the organization was in reality simply being propped up by the success of just one of its drivers, the numbers from last year compared to this tell a somewhat different story.
Keep in mind that one key difference this season compared to last has been the change of drivers in the No. 14 Ford. Veteran Clint Bowyer retired from competition at the end of 2020 to take on a commentating role with Fox Sports. He was then replaced by rookie Chase Briscoe. Other than that, the driver lineup that included former Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick along with Aric Almirola and Cole Custer has remained the same.
When the NASCAR Playoffs began in 2020, all four Stewart-Haas Racing cars were in the mix with Harvick having a dominating season that seemingly assured him of a shot at the title while Custer earned his way in by virtue of a mid-season win at the now unused Kentucky Speedway. Bowyer and Almirola were among the 16 championship contenders after having amassed enough points during the “regular season” to secure their place.
Ultimately, Custer and Almirola did not survive the first playoff cut and Bowyer was eliminated after the second round. Harvick, however, looked certain to make it into the group of four who would decide the matter in Phoenix but came up just shy of that goal and had to settle for fifth in the final rundown.
With the current season almost at its halfway mark, a minor miracle would have to occur for SHR to send even two of its drivers, much less all four, to the playoffs after the cut is made when the checkered flag waves over the 26th race at Daytona International Speedway.
To this point, there have been 16 races completed on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule and the results are far from where they were in 2020 after that same number of events. If the cut were made today, only Harvick would represent SHR in the playoffs. None of the organization’s other drivers are currently even in the top-25 of the standings.
A deeper look exposes more of a drop in performance. Harvick has even seen his production fall compared to 2020 when he was dominant.
At this point last year, the No. 4 Ford had pulled into victory lane four times and had scored nine top-5 and thirteen top-10 results. After 16 races this year, he has yet to win a race and has posted only four top-5 and eleven top-10s. But perhaps an even better indicator of strength, Harvick had led 640 laps to this point last season but had paced the field for only 39 circuits so far in 2021.
And while Harvick’s performance has fallen year over year, it is all this organization has to hang its hat on in 2021. Currently, drivers Briscoe, Custer, and Almirola languish in 26th, 27th, and 28th respectively in the NASCAR Cup Series standings. Each would almost certainly have to win a race to gain entry into the playoffs as scoring enough points to reach the top-16 would seem unlikely facing such a deficit with ten races before the cut is made.
Those three drivers have not managed a single top-5 among them and have only cracked the top-10 of the finishing order a total of four times.
A year ago, Almirola ranked 9th in the standings at this point of the season with five top-5 and eight top-10 efforts to his credit. Bowyer was 13th in points with five top-10 finishes. Almirola and Bowyer had led 90 and 139 laps respectively by this time of the season. At this point, Custer was 25th overall with two top-10s.
Briscoe, Custer and Almirola have led only 18 laps combined so far in 2021.
A look at the numbers seems to indicate that SHR has definitely taken a turn for the worse across the board this year. One explanation could be that the organization does not want to allocate resources to build more of this particular generation of car knowing that the NextGen machine will be coming on line in 2022. And certainly, that could very well be the reason for the downturn.
In the most recent race at Sonoma, the SHR cars were scored 17th(Briscoe), 20th(Custer), 22nd(Harvick), and 27th(Almirola).
At the same time, one could look at the improvement experienced by Hendrick Motorsports since the mid-point of last season as an example of a team that has made gains with the current car despite the fact that another chassis and body style will be in play later.
Whatever the reason, Stewart-Haas Racing has dropped off dramatically in terms of results during the first half of the 2021 season. Of course, all could be rescued with a win that would probably result in a NASCAR Playoffs invitation in the same way that Custer did in 2020 even though three of their drivers are well back in the standings.
Richard Allen is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association
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