NASCAR CUP SERIES: ENJOY ILLINOIS 300

September 13, 2026

Jeff Gordon

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the vice chairman of the race-winning team, Jeff Gordon with Hendrick Motorsports.

We will go straight to questions.

Q. I'm surprised, I have to say, I didn't think this was a Hendrick track. I thought you struggled here. A 1-2 finish. Is this what you expected coming into today?

JEFF GORDON: It was a unique race, right? There were a lot of failures and cautions that changed up strategies and different things.

All I can say is, you know, we've been gaining on it. We've definitely been getting better. I think Larson did a test here last year or the year before. I thought at that time they felt pretty good about improving our setups for all of our cars and what we needed here.

I feel like it wasn't outside the realm. More power, lower downforce has been a challenge for us. Again, I've just been witnessing all the work and the effort that's being put into making our cars better and trying to get our drivers comfortable, then try to execute some good races.

Today that all came together.

Q. What does it mean that you see that validated now at a key moment, closing the points lead?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, because Darlington is Darlington, right? I was pretty optimistic from where Kyle started the race and was able to get to the front, lead, do some of the things he did. That's Darlington. We've seen that happen. Although Darlington last fall was not great (smiling).

It was hard to say where we were at from that particular race necessarily. But I think today definitely kind of confirms the progress that we've been making.

Q. What has Kyle's psyche been over the last year, year and a half, as he's tried to get back to Victory Lane?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, I mean, I've seen this in my own career, in others' over the years, where things aren't going your way. You make some mistakes or things happen to get you in a vulnerable position. Maybe a team makes a mistake.

That's one thing, and that can get you down. But the thing that gets you down the most, especially when you've had success, is not having fast race cars, not having cars capable of running up front.

I think, if anything, it's probably challenged those guys the most. We've had a lot of conversations this year about maybe how we've been approaching some of the races, knowing we're behind. We were always trying to catch up, get our cars better, working through that with all of our teammates at Chevy, Chevy themselves internally.

Effort was being put in, and we just weren't seeing the results. Just kind of took some time this season. I feel like it's been a really long season. Over the last four, five months, maybe two or three months, we've definitely been seeing some things start to be put together.

Like Indy, yeah, Kyle was frustrated that they didn't get the result that they felt like they were capable of. Had another incident happen. But the speed was there. That's a big change from what kind of we had earlier in the year where the speed wasn't there and some things were not going their way.

Kyle, all of our guys, is one of those guys if the speed is there, I see his confidence pops right back up right away.

Q. What do you think Kyle learned, if anything, by going through this long drought?

JEFF GORDON: Oh, boy. Well, he'll be in here shortly. You can ask him that. I don't want to answer that for him because I'm not really sure.

This sport can humble you. As confident of a driver and as fast of a driver as Kyle is, you got to sometimes be patient, let the race come to you, let the speed of the cars be a part of the process, which he very much is, then get to see the results of all that.

I don't know exactly, other than what it truly means to be a team, and how everybody contributes at Hendrick Motorsports. Rick said this recently. You might be able to get us down for a period of time, but you're not going to keep us down and out of Victory Lane forever.

That's what I'm most proud of, how they've worked together, fought through some things that looked like there was no end in sight, but they kept their heads down and stayed together. I'm not just meaning the 5 team, the whole organization.

Look, it's great to have this win and get three in the top five today, but we still have work to do. This just kind of verifies the effort and the direction that everybody's heading in. Certainly will give us confidence going to each race here on out for the rest of the season.

Q. Nothing to take away from Kyle today, but how important was it for Alex to have a good day, and the 48 team as a whole?

JEFF GORDON: Him, the 24 as well. This weekend has been tough on Alex. Anybody that knows Alex knows how much his pets mean to him. So he's had a tough loss. I mean, seeing him before the race, I was a little worried about how he's going to get behind the wheel and go compete.

To go out there and compete, put that kind of off to the side during that race, but then having that driving him and motivating him and being able to be rewarded with that effort with a great finish today.

He had the car capable of winning, honestly, there at the end. I know how much that meant to him personally.

The 24 guys, nothing has gone their way. It didn't even go their way today until the end. When you fight like that, you've had the season they've had, these moments are really, really crucial, especially at this point in the season.

Q. Everybody is chasing JGR, and Penske has picked it up a little bit. Is there something you are keying on or willing to risk over the next couple of races to not only continue that momentum we saw today or do you feel you need to stay like you're not going to risk trying some things?

JEFF GORDON: This whole year I think we've been so focused on our own just what input our drivers are giving us, what simulation is giving us, engineering, all the tools that we have at our disposal, just looking at it and saying what is going to make our cars go faster mechanically, aero-wise, under the hood, every aspect of it.

So we've been so focused on our own thing because we were that far off. I feel like that's what's gotten us here. I think that's what we need to continue to do.

Again, when Cliff comes in, he can probably describe a lot more what their plan is moving forward than I could. I just know that we were behind coming in, not only on speed and execution, but on points. The 24 is still behind. The 9 is still behind. So I know those guys had ground to make up. But for the 5, now they're kind of on level playing field. So now it comes down to consistency, in my opinion.

Yeah, you always want to strike if you can, win, but also with the way this format is, you got to get those stage points and you got to be consistent.

I don't know how they're going to approach it. I think the 5 team kind of only goes at it one way. They're usually pretty aggressive (smiling). I would imagine they would probably continue to do that.

Q. For Alex this year, constantly knocked down over and over again. What is it about him that he keeps getting back up?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, he is a fighter. Seems like when he's down is when he kind of gets the most out of it. I don't know exactly why that is.

Alex is a guy that has had to use different things to motivate him over the years. A lot of it is when people doubt him or when things are questionable. Maybe that's been kind of throughout his career where maybe he never was given enough credit for the talent that he has.

All I know is how proud we are to have him as a teammate, how much he's contributed over the years, in ways that will maybe not always show up on the results on Sunday, but in many ways.

He's been like family for so many reasons. We always want the best for him. We're looking forward to hopefully having some more momentum coming out of the end of this year to take into next year and have a great season to send him off in what's next for him.

Q. Overall looking back towards the end of the race, the 48 pushes the 5 a couple times, from your perspective how much did that help Kyle late in the race? What's going through your mind in the closing laps?

JEFF GORDON: When you're racing a guy like Joey Logano, if you can get clear of him into turn one, that's a good thing. That's not easy to do. I mean, he's really good on restarts. He'll battle it out and grind it out. He had a good car.

I think the goal was to be clear of him into one or off of two. Those were some really good pushes that Alex gave Kyle. So that worked out pretty well. But the cautions kept coming out.

Once Bowman got to second, you kind of have to look at it a little bit different. We still had some good protection around us. Not only William, but I think Ross was there, other Chevys there, too. I think Joey probably felt like he was a sitting duck in many ways.

If you can take the front row, you've got to take the front row. I don't think there was ever really a thought of Alex doing anything other than that.

Listen, you just never know how things might turn out, too, on a restart. You saw a lot of failures. You see guys going three- and four-wide. There's a chance Alex wins the race.

Of course, it was important for the championship, but there was no team orders other than if you had the option to be able to push, push the 5 versus the 22. Once Alex got into second, then the game plan kind of changed to get on the front row and get as good a start as you can. Just try to make sure they don't get three-wide going into turn one. Luckily all that worked out, as well.

Q. A lot of the talk is surrounding Kyle during this previous drought. It's a team sport. You have Cliff Daniels helming the 5 team. What have you seen from Cliff in this drought that stood out to you?

JEFF GORDON: Yeah, again, he might be able to talk about it a little bit more because from where I sit, while he was tested, I thought he never wavered. I just felt like he found ways to keep the team together. He knows he's asking a lot out of his folks from trying to make the cars go faster.

Yeah, he's tenacious and relentless. That's what it takes to win at this level, and win championships. But that can also be hard on himself as well as be hard on the people around him. You got to keep those folks together when you're asking that much out of them. I don't know that anybody does a better job of that than Cliff.

Q. Gateway has been notoriously hard on brakes, regardless of rules package. The issues were not widespread. Are you comfortable from a Hendrick standpoint of teams being able to do whatever they want there? Should NASCAR consider stepping in, maybe having a little bit more say-so over certain brake packages?

JEFF GORDON: I better be careful how I answer that. I don't want to overstep.

I feel like the reason we're in this position is because we're so limited. It's the opposite. We need more options and more ability. If we want to cool more, cool more. If we want a different pad...

I mean, I was glad to see them at least look at rotors and things. But this track is really extreme on brakes. I would just like to see NASCAR and the teams work a little bit more together with the brake manufacturers to try to find a solution for here.

I mean, our cars are notorious hard on brakes in general, then hard on them here. I feel like with the right amount of effort, they can come up with a solution.

We shouldn't be coming here with teams feeling like the margins are that close. I think every team came in here nervous. When they dropped the green, they were nervous.

Q. Do you have any thought on why it was so chaotic today?

JEFF GORDON: Well, I mean, I was thinking about it, right? At first I thought it was just amateur hour at the beginning of this race (laughter). Then I got thinking. Some of it's the downforce package, right? The cars are pretty edgy.

A lot of it is just track position. It's so hard to make a pass. You get inside of somebody, you're having to be aggressive to try to make a move to make that pass happen. Sometimes you lose control. That sends you up into somebody.

I think this three- and four-wide stuff on restarts, clearly that's what was causing the majority of the incidents. You have to ask yourself why are the drivers taking that much risk to do that. It's I think because every opportunity they get to make a pass, they have to take it, have to be very aggressive with it.

I definitely saw some moves I thought were very questionable that did not seem like it was going to work, and they didn't. Sometimes it's the pressure of the championship where people just feel like they have to be super aggressive.

Denny I think proved about what patience can do. He avoided quite a few things. I never saw him put himself in a bad position and get caught up in something. I saw some guys with a little less experience do that. I saw some guys run out of talent, too (laughter).

I think it's a combination of a lot of things today.

THE MODERATOR: Jeff, congratulations.

JEFF GORDON: Thank you.