Hendrick Motorsports exec offers 'mixed' assessment of season to date
With the Sprint Cup Series enjoying its first off-week of the 2016 season, it's a natural time for drivers and teams to reflect on how the first five races have gone.
Citing what he called "mixed results," Duchardt is encouraged by how the 11-time Sprint Cup championship-winning organization has bounced back after a rough outing in the Daytona 500 where none of the four Hendrick drivers finished in the top 10.
Since then, Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson has scored wins at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Auto Club Speedway, while teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and rookie Chase Elliott have also shown flashes of strength.
With five races in the books, Hendrick has two drivers in the top 10 in points -- Johnson is second and Earnhardt is eighth.
Hurt by two finishes outside the top 35, Elliott sits 16th in the standings, followed by teammate Kasey Kahne in 18th.
"Our (Daytona) Speedweeks was going well until the Daytona 500 -- I felt like our cars were competitive -- (but) unfortunately we didn't get the results we wanted there," Duchardt told the Hendrick Motorsports website. "But as we've transitioned into the meat of our season, the downforce tracks, I feel like the team has good momentum.
"Our cars have good speed and we need to just focus on continuing to improve our cars and executing well during the race. If we can do that, I think we're going to have good results as we get into the season."
With Johnson's win last weekend at Auto Club Speedway, Hendrick became the first organizaton to go to Victory Lane twice in 2016.
Johnson, who is seeking a record-tying seventh Sprint Cup title this year with his Chad Knaus-led team, has finished no worse than 16th while completing all 1,315 laps of competition so far in 2016.
"Jimmie and Chad and the No. 48 crew have had a really good start to the season," Duchardt said. "They've been fast at every track we've gone to. They overcame adversity that we had at Phoenix and ran well. I look to them to be strong all year."
Despite being plagued by inconsistency, Elliott has been one of the season's biggest bright spots for the Hendrick organization. The 20-year-old second-generation driver came home a career-best sixth last weekend at Fontana after finishing eighth at both Atlanta and Phoenix.
Elliott, the 2014 XFINITY Series champion and son of 1988 Sprint Cup champion Bill Elliott, sent the NASCAR world abuzz in February by capturing the pole for his first Daytona 500, but crashed in the early laps of the race.
"He's shown a lot of promise," Duchardt said of the driver who replaced four-time champion and NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon in the iconic No. 24 Chevy. "That is a veteran team, which we look forward to watching grow and improve through the year."
