Kevin Harvick exposes the issues “holding Kyle Busch’s team back” in 2025 season

2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick revealed the issues that has been stopping the No:8 team from achieving their true potential.

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The 2025 NASCAR Cup season so far hasn’t been kind to Richard Childress Racing’s two times champion Kyle Busch. From the first 10 races of the year, he has just one top-5 finish, while four of his finishes were outside the top-20, currently placing him P16 in the championship table. 2014 Cup champion Kevin Harvick has now given a bold assessment of the veteran’s season.

In the Happy Hour Podcast, Kevin Harvick, highlighted how mistakes on the track and the pit-stop have been the cause of Kyle Busch’s poor form this season. This put them is a situation where taking advantage of good qualifying is just a daydream. With track position being the most significant factor of racing in the Next-Gen era, the No:8 team can’t afford to consistently make such mistakes.

So, between the mistakes and the speed of the pit stops, really putting themselves at a deficit for days like this, making those mistakes and the stops being slower compared to the rest of the guys, really puts them in a position that they’re not able to capitalize on those good qualifying efforts because of all the mistakes and everything that are happening.

Kevin Harvick said via Happy Hour podcast.

Racing is a game of milliseconds and every micro-second a driver loses owing to the mistakes later comes up to bite them. The mistakes piling up every race is holding the No:8 Chevy team back from discovering their true potential in the 2025 season.

So, it’s a close game. It’s a game of milliseconds, whether it’s the pit stops or qualifying or whatever that is and the mistakes will pile up for you and I think the mistakes for that 8 car and Kyle Busch’s team are holding them back a bit.

Kevin Harvick added.

Kevin Harvick highlights the pit-road woes of Kyle Busch

In the same conversation, Kevin Harvick explained how bad Kyle Busch’s team has been on the pit-road. They are currently the 20th best crew, while 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace has the fastest crew at the moment. The No:8 having just three stops under 10 seconds in 2025 so far, shows how poor they are performing.

Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch
Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch (Via IMAGO)

He’s had four speeding penalties on pit road, they’ve had one loose wheel, their pit crew is 20th ranked in overall speed. But this is the stat that really stuck out to me about the pit crew: they’ve had three stops all year that were under 10 seconds. The No. 1 pit crew of Bubba Wallace has had 18.

Kevin Harvick said.

Richard Childress has some tough tasks on his hands at the moment regarding the poor execution from his team. There needs to some changes made to crew, to give them a proper direction and Kyle Busch also might need a good pep-talk from the Hall of Fame team owner.

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