Hendrick is doing very well on appeal

Hendrick Motorsports has never denied the non-compliance of the parts and based its defense on the fact that these shutters are produced by an independent company approved by the NASCAR. If there is a fault on the part of the team, it could only be a mistake of carelessness in not having checked the conformity of the parts before fitting them on the four cars. Hence responsibility of the team and the team leaders, but not of the drivers. Argument admissible and therefore received by the independent American organization National Motorsports Appeals Panel in charge of studying this appeal.

Since there is a recognized fault, there must, however, be a sanction and the appeal decision confirms the fines of 100 dollars imposed on teams No. 000, 5, 9 and 24 as well as the suspensions of four races imposed to the four team leaders. However, the team and driver penalties of 48 points in the regular season and 100 points in the Playoffs are canceled. Kyle Larson, William Byron and Alex Bowman thus recover these precious points. Chase Elliott, injured and replaced by Josh Berry and Jordan Taylor, was logically not penalized.

The shutters in question © NASCAR

A balanced decision which, however, does not fully delight NASCAR officials: “We are pleased that the National Motorsports Appeals Panel has recognized that Hendrick Motorsports violated the rules, NASCAR said in a terse statement. However, we are disappointed that the full sanction has not been upheld. A points penalty is a powerful deterrent that is necessary to deter any rule violations, and we believe this was an important part of the penalty. »

Another story obviously on the Hendrick side: “We are grateful to the National Motorsports Appeals Panel for their time and attention, said team owner Rick Hendrick in a press release. Today's result reflects the facts, and we are pleased that the panel did the right thing in overturning the points penalty. This confirmed the issues we raised. We look forward to focusing on the remainder of our season, starting with this weekend's race at Richmond. »

Alex Bowman regains his seat as championship leader, while William Byron occupies third place. Kyle Larson is in ninth place.

General classification before the Richmond round:

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