Hendrick Motorsports drivers not worried about future split from SHR
Two days after Wednesday's shocking news that Stewart-Haas Racing is leaving Chevrolet and will field Fords in 2017, Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott weighed in.
SHR's new deal with the Blue Oval brigade will mean the end of the organization's long-standing technical alliance with team owner Rick Hendrick's organization, which reaps the financial benefit of supplying SHR with engines and chassis.
The two Chevrolet camps have been in partnership since even before 2009, the year Tony Stewart became a co-owner of SHR along with businessman and team founder Gene Haas.
Hendrick Motorsports, which fields the cars of Johnson, Elliott, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne, will likely need to make some adjustments to its business model to compensate for the revenue stream it receives from the SHR alliance.
"The business impact, fortunately we have 12 months to figure out how to stay where we are from an employee standpoint," Johnson said on Friday morning at Atlanta Motor Speedway. "I know that is Rick's goal and Rick has made that known through the company. We have 12 months to get there. We have contracts to honor now, and Gene and Tony and Rick have worked through all those details. We are honoring the contracts as we would. They are Chevy-powered, Hendrick-powered engines and Hendrick chassis right now.
"We are going to continue to work hard and honor the contracts and give Rick the time to figure out how to bring in some more revenue. If it's supplying engines and chassis for other teams, bringing in more sponsorship to keep everything where it's at, we've got some time to figure all that out, which is cool."
Conceding that the revelation of SHR's imminent manufacturer realignment "definitely was a surprise," Johnson asserted that Hendrick Motorsports has no plans to follow suit.
Rookie teammate Chase Elliott joined Johnson on Friday in pledging their organization's loyalty to Chevrolet.
Their boss, Rick Hendrick, has been with Chevy since 1984 -- his first year as a Sprint Cup team owner, and the year before the formation of Hendrick Motorsports.
"Chevy has had a long, long history with Mr. Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports," Elliott said. "We're excited about that and we're exciting about continuing that relationship with them for a long time."
If there's a positive for Hendrick Motorsports to glean from the forthcoming split with SHR, perhaps it's that beginning next year, the Hendrick organization will no longer be compared so closely to their de-facto teammates from SHR. The past two seasons, SHR has placed a driver -- Kevin Harvick -- higher in the standings than Hendrick.
In its seven-year existence, SHR has won two Sprint Cup titles, compared to three for Hendrick -- all courtesy of Johnson -- over that same stretch.
"It's certainly not fun to be beat by your own equipment, but at the same time, it has helped motivate us in a lot of ways," Johnson said. "We know that we have been getting outrun by our own stuff. It's helped us, maybe find a direction in where to work a little easier."
On Friday morning at AMS, the six-time Sprint Cup champion struck an optimistic tone about the future of Hendrick Motorsports, without SHR as a partner.
"Giving Rick Hendrick 12 months to figure out how to make it work is the exciting part," he said. "I feel like Hendrick Motorsports is going to be stronger yet come 2017."
