Cup preview: Stewart-Haas Racing

ByJOHN OREOVICZ
February 20, 2015, 1:00 PM

— -- One in a series of 16 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team previews ahead of the season-opening Daytona 500:

Stewart-Haas Racing

Principal owners: Tony Stewart, Gene Haas

Manufacturer: Chevrolet

Engine source: Hendrick Motorsports

Alliances: Hendrick Motorsports

Drivers (crew chiefs): Tony Stewart (Chad Johnston), Danica Patrick (Daniel Knost), Kevin Harvick (Rodney Childers), Kurt Busch (Tony Gibson)

2014's top finisher: Harvick, Sprint Cup champion

2014 grade: B-plus

Ownership stability: B-plus

Sponsorship stability: B-plus

Driver/crew chief quality: B-plus

2015 team grade: B-plus

2015 outlook: The 2014 season was good, bad and ugly for Stewart-Haas Racing. The good part was actually great, because new arrivals Kevin Harvick and Rodney Childers clicked immediately and bulldozed their way to Harvick's first Sprint Cup Series championship, the second for SHR. The rest of the team's year had few bright spots. Danica Patrick achieved a career-best finish (sixth place at Atlanta) and showed improvement in qualifying, but she dropped to 28th place in the Sprint Cup standings. Kurt Busch, also new to SHR in 2014, won the spring race at Martinsville to qualify for the Chase, but was rarely a factor elsewhere and found himself in the mainstream media spotlight in the offseason thanks to an alleged domestic dispute with his former girlfriend. Team co-owner Tony Stewart also had a bad year on the track; his continued recovery from injuries suffered in an August 2013 sprint car crash contributed to his failure to win a race for the first time in his 15-year Sprint Cup career. Like Busch, Stewart had even bigger issues to contend with off the track -- he was involved in a fatal sprint car accident in August that attracted national attention and caused him to miss three NASCAR races. Stewart enters 2015 recharged and promises to regain the trademark swagger on and off the track that makes him such a fan favorite. The jury is still out on a late 2014 crew swap that placed veteran Tony Gibson with Busch and Daniel Knost with Patrick, who is in a crucial contract season that could determine the trajectory of her stock car career.

Driver lineup

Kevin Harvick (No. 4 Budweiser/Jimmy John's Chevrolet): Having worked hard for 15 years to achieve his lifetime goal of Sprint Cup champion, Harvick now faces a different kind of pressure as he tries to repeat. Harvick and the No. 4 team were a threat to win almost everywhere in 2014, but this year's regulation changes to the cars put them back on level ground with everyone else. If Childers can tune the new cars to Harvick's liking as he did in 2014, we could see a happy repeat champion at Homestead.

2015 goal: Now that he's reached the top of the mountain, stay there

Kurt Busch (No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet): Busch may have more raw talent than any other driver in the Sprint Cup Series, and teamed with new crew chief Tony Gibson, he came closer to showing it in the last three races of the 2014 season than he had all year long. An early win at Martinsville got him into the Chase, but Busch and the first-year No. 41 were not otherwise in the top 20 of the standings, leading to the crew change. Busch has plenty of reason to be optimistic about his 2015 campaign as long as his potential legal troubles off the track don't keep him out of the car.

2015 goal: Stay out of non-sports page headlines

Danica Patrick (No. 10 GoDaddy/Aspen Dental Chevrolet): Patrick has led 15 laps in her NASCAR career, yet experts say she is more marketable than Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. That hypothesis could get put to the test this year if Patrick doesn't start posting the kind of results expected out of a driver with all the technical resources of SHR and Hendrick Motorsports at her disposal. There was improvement in 2014, for sure, with better qualifying performances across the board and a career-best finish of sixth at Atlanta. But Danica has a long way to go as a racer to become a front-runner or race winner. The team hopes pairing her with an engineering-minded crew chief such as Knost will help unlock more of the potential she occasionally shows.

2015 goal: Secure her long-term future in NASCAR

Tony Stewart (No. 14 Mobil 1/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet): It's easy to see the toll the last two years have taken on Tony Stewart. But if you know Stewart at all, you also know that the best thing for him is to strap back into the No. 14 Chevrolet at Daytona to get back to work. Stewart used the offseason to recharge his mental batteries after two emotionally taxing seasons, the reasons for which have been well-documented. He's feeling better physically, too; the lingering effects of the 2013 sprint car crash that started the downward spiral are now nearly gone. After the events of the past 18 months, "Smoke" admits that he may never return to his short-track roots as a driver, but his commitment to that form of racing as a team owner, track owner and promoter hasn't wavered.

2015 goal: Put an end to his winless streak and run for another title