Chase Elliott’s body language as he leaned against his car on pit road following Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway was unmistakable.
He was understandably spent after a physically demanding day in the heat and humidity, driving 160 laps around the iconic and super-demanding 2.5-mile triangular-shaped track. And the 2020 series champion climbed out of his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, simultaneously encouraged with his fifth-place showing, but also wanting more.
Although Elliott, 29, is the only driver in the series to have scored top-20 finishes in all 17 races to date, he is a former champion, a perpetual winner and is still frustrated every time he does not take home a trophy. And he remains racing for that first piece of hardware this season, hoping Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 (7 ET on TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Atlanta’s 1.5-mile EchoPark Speedway changes his trajectory.
Elliott is ranked fifth in the championship, 80 points behind his Hendrick teammate and standings leader William Byron, with nine races remaining to settle which 16 drivers advance to the 2025 NASCAR Playoffs. He is the highest-ranked driver without a win, which is both a testament to his work and a motivator to do even better.
“That is a good question,” he said when asked if he considers this a “good season.”
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“Good? Sure, but it’s not where I want to be, no doubt. I think for us there have been some high spots and to be honest, there have been weeks where we have run well where we have had a good finish, and there have been weeks where we have not had a good finish and I can go home and be like, ‘man, we were in the mix, and we had good pace today.’ And those are the weeks where you just want to feel like you are in the ball game as it pertains to pace, doing the right things, and getting up in there and giving yourself a shot.
“Those days, I can go home and have something to be proud of,” he continued. “It’s the days and weekends where we are just not even relevant that I think are the most frustrating to me. We have had more of those than I would want to have, and that we would want to have as a team.
“So, I think it’s been good but not satisfactory for myself or to our team, but there is still a lot of racing left in the season, and I think we have ourselves in a position to make a mediocre day alright. We can build from it, and we still have a chance.”
Sunday’s Pocono showing marked the first time this season Elliott has had back-to-back top-five finishes after earning a season-best third place at the inaugural Mexico City road course a week ago.
And the next three races include a stop at the Georgia-native’s “home track” near Atlanta, followed by back-to-back road course races — on the Chicago Street Course and Sonoma Raceway. Elliott won from pole position at Atlanta in 2022 and has eight top-10 finishes in 13 starts there.
The road courses, however, have absolutely been Elliott’s talent palette. With seven career road course victories — on five different tracks — he is the best among active drivers on that style of track. Only a pair of NASCAR Hall of Famers — Tony Stewart with eight wins and Jeff Gordon with nine — have won more on road courses in NASCAR history.
“It’s, do you really have a legit shot at winning that day? I mean, just based on your pace and so on and so forth,” Elliott said of strategy for these next races. “It’s super circumstantial, the best way to answer that. The biggest circumstance that is going to dictate what you do in those moments is what kind of pace you have, and what kind of real shot you have to win the race when you just kind of sit back and look at the day so far and compare it to the guys that have had good air and are out front.
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“I have a pretty good idea when that is the case and when that is not the case, but certainly [crew chief] Alan [Gustafson] and everybody on the box on the team, they are the ones that are watching that much closer than I am able to. So, we will see, and I hope that we are fast, and I am down with giving up stage points to give ourselves a shot to win, all day long, for sure.”
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe claimed another automatic playoff bid with his victory at Pocono on Sunday; six of the last eight race winners have been first-time race winners this season. Eleven of the 16 automatic bids have been claimed by race winners, with nine races remaining to settle the final five spots.
Notably, the TNT broadcast portion of the schedule begins this week and will feature an inaugural In-Season Challenge — a $1 million-to-win incentive program unfolding over the next five races.
ISC: Fill out your bracket for a shot at $1 million!
The top 32 drivers in the points standings following the Nashville race qualified for the bonus program, and the seeding was set based on how drivers fared in the Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono races.
Each week, two drivers are pitted against one another, with the lower finishing driver that day eliminated in a bracket-style competition. The final driver-to-driver round, based on the outcome of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will decide the champion and winner of that $1 million check.
