NASCAR insider Jordan Bianchi praised Hendrick Motorsports’ recent performance at World Wide Technology Raceway. He argued that the team should feel optimistic about the next round despite one driver being on the verge of elimination.For context, HMS struggled in the NASCAR playoff opener at Darlington Raceway, where Chase Elliott led the team with a 17th-place finish. In the recently concluded Enjoy Illinois 300 at WWT Raceway, Elliott once again delivered their top result in third, followed by William Byron and Kyle Larson in 11th and 12th, respectively. Alex Bowman, meanwhile, came home 26th.Larson currently leads the team in the playoff standings, sitting third behind Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe, who have each secured a win to clinch their spots in the Round of 12. Byron holds sixth, while Elliott is ninth. Bowman, however, heads into the Round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway 35 points below the cutline in 15th.Speaking about HMS' chances in this year's NASCAR postseason, Jordan Bianchi said (via The Teardown podcast):“If you're Hendrick, I think you're feeling really good about yourself after today... after the debacle that was Darlington and a track that has been just you've been in the wilderness on, and you come here and run the way you do.”“And three of your four guys are well-positioned to move on, I think you're feeling really good about your chances, especially going into a round with a Kansas and a Roval where... they should certainly be in the mix,” he added.The Round of 16 finale at Bristol is scheduled for September 13 at 7:30 p.m. ET. Kyle Larson will head into the night race as the defending winner, having dominated last year’s event by leading 462 of 500 laps with virtually no challenge at the front.“It was a bummer”: HMS driver Alex Bowman on 26th-place finish in second NASCAR playoff raceAlex Bowman, driver of the #48 for Hendrick Motorsports, voiced frustration over his 26th-place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway last weekend. He pointed to poor execution as the key factor behind the disappointing result, which dealt a blow to his hopes of advancing to the Round of 12.The 32-year-old NASCAR Cup Series driver said (via NBC Sports):“It was just really poor execution on all angles today. It was a bummer. I thought our #48 Ally Chevrolet was okay once we were kind of towards the front-half. We just struggled in the back. Super frustrating.”He vowed to keep working to be better, adding:“All we can do is keep digging. There’s a lot of people working really hard to continue to be better. I thought, race car-wise, we were heading in the right direction once we had some air on it. We just have to go to Bristol (Motor Speedway) and go to work.”Out of Hendrick’s four NASCAR drivers, Bowman remains the only one without a win this season. His closest call came at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where a late mistake while running near the wall on the final lap allowed teammate Kyle Larson to slip by and claim the victory.