2010 Team Reviews: Stewart-Haas Racing Steps Back

Not everyone doubted Tony Stewart when he announced his departure from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2008 to form his own Sprint Cup team, Stewart-Haas Racing.

But he will certainly note, as will anyone else around at that point, that so many people from so many corners of NASCAR thought the two-time champion was committing career suicide.

Instead, 2009 proved to be about as far from the gloomy predictions as possible when both Stewart and teammate Ryan Newman qualified for NASCAR's championship battle. Their campaigns in the 2009 Chase to the Sprint Cup were to little avail, but seemed to paint a soon-to-be-dominant future for the race team.

Comparatively, 2010 was a step back for the SHR team -- back to about the level most thought Stewart would be competing at by now.

The feisty driver won twice, but never seemed to find the consistent performance needed to match or exceed 2009. The same was true for Newman, a non-qualifier for the 2010 Chase.

Tony Stewart -- 2 wins, 9 Top-5s, 17 Top-10s, 1 DNF, 13.9 Avg. Finish

Summertime was -- once again -- the good time for Tony Stewart in the 2010 NASCAR season.

After a sluggish start to the sophomore campaign of his own team, Stewart finally hit stride just as the temperature started to rise. Of course, that's no surprise for the gritty Stewart as he's long been known as a driver who turns up the wick under the blazing summer sun.

The sluggish start included a 22nd-place finish in the Daytona 500, followed by a six-race span in which Stewart didn't crack 16th-place. That left the No. 14 team looking more like a rookie group in NASCAR's top division. The summer couldn't come soon enough.

From the first Pocono race to NASCAR's second trip to Atlanta in September -- a race Stewart won -- he finished in the top 10 in all but two races (Daytona and Bristol). In terms of points, Stewart jumped an incredible 12 spots -- from 16th to fourth.

The Chase didn't prove as kind, however.

Stewart began the championship fight with a thud, finishing 24th and 21st in the first two races. His tide briefly shifted in the next two weeks when he finished fourth at Kansas and followed with a win in California.

The early Chase gremlins came right back, though, as Stewart failed to find a top 10 again until the finale at Homestead.

Ryan Newman -- 1 win, 4 top-5s, 14 top-10s, 4 DNFs, 14.7 avg. finish

Newman, now in just his second season away from Penske Racing after joining the Stewart-Haas ranks for 2009, had a year full of mixed emotions and results.

The Indiana native won his first race with the Chevrolet team -- his first win since stealing the 2008 Daytona 500 away from Stewart on the last lap -- but failed to make the Chase. He also finished more races on the lead lap in 2010, but failed to finish more races than 2009.

The stats say Newman missed out on the Chase because he failed to assemble at least a three-race run of top-10 finishes during the regular season. By the time the Sprint Cup Series reached the Chase cutoff at Richmond, Newman's only hopes involved a wing and a prayer -- and neither panned out.

Left on the outside of the Chase for the fourth time in five years -- Newman scored a spot in the championship battle in 2009 and finished ninth -- he finally found a stretch of consistency with four straight top-10s to lead off the Chase races.

His ineligibility aside for the title, Newman assured himself of more head-scratching when he reeled off 20th-or-worse finishes from Charlotte to Texas during the Chase.

Stewart-Haas' Best of 2010: Newman finally winning a race for the SHR camp.

Stewart-Haas' Worst of 2010: Stewart never finding the impressive touch he showed in 2009.

What to watch for at Stewart-Haas in 2011: With massive reshuffling at Hendrick Motorspots, will the alliances between the teams wane? If so, will that cause SHR to fall further back?