2015 Reviews: Chip Ganassi Racing
Welcome to our 2015 reviews. Instead of going driver-by-driver we’re going to review teams this year. We’re starting from the bottom of the standings and working our way up. Chip Ganassi Racing time.
Drivers (standings in parenthesis): Jamie McMurray (13th), Kyle Larson (19th)
Highlights: McMurray made the Chase without winning a race; a year about opposite of the one where he won the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 and didn’t make the Chase.
Larson might have won the season finale at Homestead if it wasn’t for the race’s final caution. He had the fastest car by far on old tires and was making the high line work to his advantage. But the caution meant fresh tires for everyone and he finished fifth.
Both drivers had 10 top-10 finishes. McMurray finished in the top five four times while Larson’s other top five came at the first Dover race, where he finished third.
Lowlights: McMurray was one spot away from making it to the second round of the Chase. After he was passed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Dover, Junior tied McMurray in the points standings. Since Junior’s best finish in the first three races was higher than McMurray’s, he moved on to the second round of the Chase while McMurray was eliminated.
As McMurray made the Chase on points, Larson’s chances for doing so disappeared when he missed the spring Martinsville race because he fainted the day before. And also because he had some awful luck at Daytona and Talladega.
Larson finished 34th, 42nd and 39th in the three pre-Chase restrictor plate races. He was caught up in crashes in all of them. He missed the Chase cutoff by 98 points.
Overview: After failing to avoid bad finishes in 2014, McMurray was able to do so in 2015. While he wasn’t exceptionally fast week after week, he had just two finishes outside the top 30 in the first 26 races.
But despite McMurray’s Chase berth, it’s hard not to see the season as a disappointment because of Larson’s season. The sophomore had six finishes outside the top 30 in the first 26 races and ended up with six fewer top fives than he had in his rookie season.
Larson will have a new crew chief in 2016 as Chad Johnston, Tony Stewart’s crew chief in 2015, will move over to the team to replace Chris Heroy. Will the crew chief change help Larson get into the Chase in his third season? And if he bounces back, can McMurray maintain his level of success to get CGR two cars in the Chase?
Previous Reviews: Michael Waltrip Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, JTG-Daugherty Racing and Germain Racing, HScott Motorsports, Front Row Motorsports, BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
