NASCAR Cup Series driver Alex Bowman. Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

Hendrick Motorsports suffers through disastrous Southern 500, NASCAR playoff opener

By Samuel Stubbs | Last updated Sep 1, 2025 8:43 AM ET

Save for the Clemson Tigers football team, perhaps nobody in the state of South Carolina had as miserable a weekend as Rick Hendrick.

In Sunday's Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway - a crown jewel race and the opener of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs - all four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets finished outside of the top-10.

It was a surprisingly poor effort from the winningest organization in NASCAR history on a night where it could ill afford it.

No HMS driver got off worse than Alex Bowman, who had to sit through a 40-second pit stop during a green-flag cycle. Bowman was unable to recover from the costly error and finished 31st, two laps down.

Bowman snagged the final playoff spot one week ago at Daytona, but his 31st-place finish puts him 19 points below the Round of 12 cut line going into the second race of the Round of 16 at Gateway.

"Shi---, unacceptable day on all fronts," Bowman told reporters on pit road after the race.

2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott finds himself 11th on the playoff grid and only nine points above the cut line after a 17th-place finish on Sunday. Elliott earned zero stage points, and his lack of playoff points is coming back to bite him early in the postseason.

2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson was also surprisingly off the pace on Sunday evening. Larson, the 2023 Southern 500 winner, finished 19th but was able to salvage 12 crucial stage points. Larson is third on the playoff grid, 38 points above the cut line going into Gateway.

Finally, there's two-time Daytona 500 champion William Byron, who also earned zero stage points and faded to 21st at race's end. Byron is still 25 points above the cut line, but the 1.25-mile track at Gateway may not offer any respite to Hendrick Motorsports, as the organization has struggled to find speed at the facility since its inaugural Cup Series race in 2022.

Samuel Stubbs

Hailing from the same neck of the woods as NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin, Samuel has been covering NASCAR for Yardbarker since February 2024. He has been a member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) since October of 2024. When he’s not writing about racing, Samuel covers Arkansas Razorback basketball for Yardbarker

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