Will Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson restore Hendrick Motorsports' championship glory in 2025?

Hendrick Motorsports enter the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season on a three-year championship drought. The Cup Series title has been in the firm grasp of Team Penske, having won the last three championships between drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.

However, it's only a matter of time before we see one of Rick Hendrick's drivers hoisting up the title trophy in Phoenix at season's end. HMS hasn't gone more than four years without winning a championship since 1995. The stats don't lie as NASCAR's winningest team is bound to win another crown soon.

The question is, who will it be? Here, we'll take a look at the two drivers who have done it for Hendrick before in former champions Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

Chase Elliott

NASCAR: Cup Series Season Finale 500 - Source: Imagn

After a devastating leg injury that ultimately ruined his chances at a championship in 2023, Chase Elliott got back to showing what he was made of in 2024. The driver of the #9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet scored a win at Texas and narrowly missed out on a win in the next-to-last race of the season at Martinsville, which would've punched his ticket to the Championship 4 race.

Elliott is a proven championship contender since bursting onto the Cup Series scene in 2016. Aside from 2023, the Dawsonville, Georgia native has made the playoffs in every season he's been in the Cup Series and has been fairly consistent in terms of making to the round of 8 too. The son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott has made three Championship 4 appearances, with one of those being his championship-winning season in 2020.

Elliott knows what it takes to reach the championship race and win it as well. Of the 10 playoff tracks, Elliott has won at least once at five of them, including Talladega, Martinsville, and Phoenix, the last three tracks the Cup Series goes to for the season. If Elliott can find a way to the Round of 8 again, he has a clear path to punch his ticket to the Championship 4 and win the title amid his 10th Cup Series season.

However, in a playoff format that emphasizes winning, Elliott will need to win more than one race in a season if he wants to be in the contention for the championship. Although he only had one win in 2024, Elliott stayed in the hunt, race by race as he posted 19 top 10s and 11 top fives. If he can find a little more and turn a few of those top fives into wins, Elliott could be the one who brings HMS back to championship glory.

Kyle Larson

NASCAR: Cup Series Championship - Source: Imagn

It's hard to argue anyone else is better than Kyle Larson in NASCAR right now. After four seasons behind the wheel of the #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Larson is the winningest driver of the 2020s, despite missing nearly the entire 2020 campaign, with 23 victories and a championship to go with it in 2021.

Larson joined HMS ahead of the 2021 season and wasted no time showing his true potential. He won 10 races, the most in a single season since Jimmie Johnson's 10 wins in 2007, and was crowned the champion at season's end. The California-born followed up with another three wins in 2022. In 2023, Larson made it back to the Championship after missing it in 2022, winning four races and finishing runner-up in the title race. Last year, Larson was the winningest driver on the circuit again with six victories, but fell short of making the championship race.

Larson is essentially the 2020s version of Johnson as he's a threat to win at every track he goes to in his HMS machine. He and crew chief Cliff Daniels are like a second coming of Johnson and former crew chief Chad Knaus, who scored 81 wins and seven championships together. Now, it's Larson and Daniels who have won 22 races and a championship together, making them the winningest driver-crew chief combination of the decade.

Larson is undoubtedly going to be a championship threat in 2025, but it's a matter of whether or not he can find his way to the season-finale race at Phoenix and win it. Last season, Larson ran into trouble numerous times in the playoffs. He crashed out in the playoff opener at Atlanta and also wrecked out while racing for the lead at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, an opportunity that could've punched his ticket to the title race. If Larson can stay out of trouble, he'll be hard to beat for the championship in 2025 and most likely be able to deliver HMS its 15th Cup Series title.