Tony Stewart has seen his Stewart-Haas Racing team quickly exit the Cup Series gates in 2022, including Chase Briscoe’s win at Phoenix last weekend. It’s easy to predict that this season will be exponentially better than last year when the team struggled to just one victory, and that’s not from Kevin Harvick.

This week, Stewart appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and spoke about the team’s early season success and what has changed within the organization. The three-time Cup champion also wasn’t shy about addressing the team’s fans who got personal and criticized last year’s performance for all the wrong reasons.

Stewart-Haas Racing gets off to a great start in 2022

Tony Stewart couldn’t be happier with the start of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season for Stewart-Haas Racing. And the most impressive thing is that it was not limited to one race or one driver.

Chase Briscoe’s first Cup Series win in Phoenix last weekend was just one of many early season highlights for an organization that has had only a handful of highlights throughout. Last year.

Along with Briscoe, Aric Almirola began his retirement tour in style, winning three top 10 finishes in the first four races of the season. He’s had five in total in 2021.

And Kevin Harvick does Kevin Harvick things. After a 30th at Daytona, he landed a pair of top 10s and a 12th place at Las Vegas.

Tony Stewart calls out fans for getting personal and interviewing him in 2021

The Stewart-Haas Racing team obviously did their homework with the Next Gen car, and it pays off early. Tony Stewart knows it’s a long way from being there a year ago. He said so during an appearance this week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio when he spoke about the team’s performance at the start of 2022, how it’s drastically different from 2021 and how it doesn’t. Didn’t appreciate fans getting personal and questioning him last year for all the bad. the reasons.

“From my perspective, I have to be a cheerleader and remind these guys that they can do it, that they have the talent, that we have the right group of people and keep them motivated. Don’t let them down,” Stewart said.

“I think on the personal side of it for me, with those wins on Sunday (Briscoe’s Cup and first NHRA win as a team owner) I took a lot of heartbreak. I had some life changing over the past two years. Meeting Leah, getting engaged, getting married, building a new team with her, and people thought I was distracting from the Cup schedule. Sunday was proof that it wasn’t the case.

“I have good people around me. I have excellent resources with Ford. We have a great OEM on the NHRA side supporting us on the drag racing side and we have people in place to help me with all of that. I don’t have to be a one-man-band and I’m not the one who decides all the time. So people who think the cars are running bad, that I’m not doing my part, that’s BS. And it showed that this week.

Stewart said something similar in 2021 during struggles

Tony Stewart will always tell it like it is. He did so last year amid the team’s struggles.

“It’s not a season we’re proud of,” Stewart said in August. “We definitely have a problem in our organization, and it’s not with people. But there’s something we’re missing that has cost us the whole season so far and we can’t find it, but we know there’s something wrong. So it’s frustrating because we’re all sitting there scratching our heads trying to figure out what’s wrong and what’s going on.

However, as he did this week on SiriusXM, Stewart also told the station last year that it wasn’t because of complacency on his part or that of the team.

“Hearing people say we’re not working hard enough is the opposite of the truth,” Stewart said. “I’ve never seen our group fight harder than they are right now trying to find solutions to problems and trying to figure out how to get us out of the deficit we’re in. But that’s not not for lack of effort on anyone’s part and I can promise you on my part.

Tony Stewart was successful as a driver and owner. His track record backs it up, and he did it by surrounding himself with people who are good at what they do. Those fans who suggest that when SHR struggles, it’s because of a general lack of effort couldn’t be further from the truth. And Stewart will gladly be the first to point it out.

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