Hendrick Motorsports was hit with the largest fine in the history of NASCAR; The team has appealed; Chad Knaus adds context to their rebuttal
Chad Knaus: “We’re not getting the right parts.”
Last week, NASCAR confiscated hood louvers from all four Hendrick Motorsports machines as well as the No. 31 from Kaulig Racing. Later in the week, all five teams were handed massive penalties.
NASCAR confiscates parts from Hendrick Motorsports at Phoenix Raceway
Hendrick Motorsports adds explanation below.
For Hendrick Motorsports, four crew chiefs are suspended. The fines totaled $400,000. In addition, each car was docked 100 driver points, 100 owner points and 10 playoff points.
NASCAR issues $550,000 in fines after Phoenix Raceway
Chase Elliott was excluded from the points penalty as he was not in the car for the weekend. He’s currently sidelined due to injury.
Crew Chief Replacements (Hendrick Motorsports):
Kyle Larson:
Kevin Meendering
Josh Berry:
Tom Gray
William Byron:
Brian Campe
Alex Bowman:
Greg Ives
Kaulig Race was also fined $100,000 for their single violation. The No. 31 was also docked 100 driver points, 100 owners points and 10 playoff points.
Justin Haley now has -40 points in the drivers standings.
Both teams run Chevrolet machines. And, both teams have elected to appeal the penalty. An appeal date has not been set.
On Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports was asked questions about the penalty…
Largest NASCAR fine in history: Hendrick Motorsports to appeal
Chad Knaus comments on hood louvers
“I think it’s a terrible situation, not only for us, but the industry to be quite honest with you,” Chad Knaus of Hendrick Motorsports stated on Friday in Atlanta.
“I think that’s what I dislike the most. It’s ugly. We should’t be in this situation and it’s really unfortunate that we are because it doesn’t help anybody.”
“We as a company, we in the garage, every one of these teams here are being held accountable to put their car out there to go through inspection and perform at the level they need to. The teams are being held accountable for doing that.”
“Nobody is holding the single-source providers accountable at the level that they need to be to give us the parts we need. That goes through NASCAR’s distribution center and NASCAR’s approval process to get those parts, and we’re not getting the right parts.”
“There’s so many areas that we’ve got to continue to improve upon.”
“Again, that’s where I’m probably most disappointed is that we’ve been going down this path, working collectively as a group for some time and for this to pop up like this is really disappointing.”
NASCAR penalty system updated with possible $500k fine
Parts not meeting the CAD
“We’ve all jump in bed together on this thing, since we’ve started this Gen-7 car. There’s been a tremendous amount of give and take as we’ve learned how to race this car.”
“It’s very disappointing that we’re sitting in this situation right now. With a component that we have all come to the conclusion that it is not correct.”
“We’ve all tried to work, to get it fixed. Because, we’ve done that with other parts.”
“We’ve got a brand new set of these parts that we could go pull off of the shelf right now, that NASCAR deemed illegal.”
“We have a CAD that has been submitted by the OEM, the OEM gives that CAD to NASCAR and it’s NASCAR’s responsibility to make sure the parts we get, fit that CAD.”
Knaud concluded, “We made sure that our parts fit the hood, the hood closed and did all the stuff that it needed to do.”
Denny Hamlin changes his mind; Will appeal NASCAR penalty
Phoenix Race Results: March 12, 2023 (NASCAR Cup Series)
Links
Kyle Larson | Josh Berry | William Byron | Alex Bowman | Hendrick Motorsports | Phoenix Raceway | NASCAR
