NASCAR CUP SERIES: CHAMPIONSHIP RACE

November 8, 2026

Cliff Daniels

Victory Lane Interview

Q. If you don't have the adversity midyear, are you here tonight as a champion?

CLIFF DANIELS: I don't think so. I think the adversity was really important for us, just to lean into it as a team. If you handle it the right way, we have a lot of great people, great leaders around us, that you can learn so much about yourself, you can figure out how to be a little graceful to yourself when you're not doing as well as you want to do, be graceful to the world around you, look within of how to get better. Also show resilience.

I think our team has a lot of moments in our history, Hendrick Motorsports does, of showing resilience. The good Lord above, I really think His hand was in orchestrating the good and the bad. He led us through the bad when days were tough and we didn't have good results. Even only a couple weeks ago at Phoenix, what a bad day for us. Our team knew how to dig deep and stay together and keep fighting.

Even though we weren't the fastest car all the times this year, we had a very resilient team, a lot of dedicated people. Just so grateful for that. Very grateful that we finished it off.

Q. Didn't he tell you at one point this year, I'm enjoying not being good because I'm learning about us. What was that process like?

CLIFF DANIELS: Yeah, he was really willing to just lean into all the hard work it was going to take to dig ourselves out of the hole. Kyle Larson, his whole career, he can get in any type of car and be fast. He has such an amazing natural talent.

When we weren't fast, he knew we needed help to get the setups dialed in, get the cars closer, because we weren't in a really great spot.

He put it on his shoulders to come in. I think he ran the most sim hours of any of our guys all year long, which is a totally new page for him.

I'm just so proud of him leaning into helping us get the car better for how he needed to drive it, how it needed to feel.

We learned a lot through that process. If it weren't for his commitment coming in, putting in the work, long hours, in the gym, team meetings, we wouldn't be able to build our way forward. Very grateful for what Kyle did himself.

Q. What is the limit for this team?

CLIFF DANIELS: It's hard to say. You just don't know. Honestly, to even get one is a dream. To be sitting here with three is something that you can hardly even just imagine in your mind.

What I do know is we have a lot of great people. We're still blessed and fortunate to have Mr. and Mrs. Hendrick, all the great people around us that have built this year after year, really been dedicated to the culture, the organization, the company, the teams, the way we stick together and operate. Whether it's a good year or bad year, Mr. Hendrick leads us to be together.

Through that we're going to continue to improve ourselves, improve our process, and look ahead to whatever may come. There could be some rule changes in the next couple of years that are going to be fun and mix things up.

Just like every year, you've got to start over, be willing to rebuild brick by brick. That's what we're going to do. We're certainly going to enjoy this. There's going to come a time where 2026 is going to close and we have to start building the foundation for what lies ahead.