Chase Elliott knows he has to be at his best for four more races to win the NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship. Before competing in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, Elliott spoke to reporters about battling Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick for the title.
“There’s still a lot of racing left. It’s kind of how I look at it. A lot can happen in that period of time,” Elliott said. “I think It’s going to force all of us to be really good. You’re going to have to be really solid and you’re probably going to have to win a race or two between now and the end of it to have a legitimate chance without other guys having problems. I don’t really see four or five guys having issues between now and then, not all of them at least.”
Before the Brickyard 400, Elliott was first in the standings, leading Larson by three points. But with Larson winning the Indy Cup Series race, Elliott is currently second behind Larson who has a 10-point lead. Reddick is in third, and Hamlin is in fourth. All four drivers have over 700 Cup Series points.
Chase Elliott hit with penalty at Brickyard 400
Elliott earned a P10 finish on Sunday but was not happy with an incident that happened in the early stages of the race. NASCAR penalized the 28-year old for violating the blend line rule coming off a pit road. It led to Elliott having an outburst on his radio, but NASCAR insider Jordan Bianich of The Athletic beleive that Elliott did break a rule.
“I didn’t understand why Chase was as angry — I understand why there’s some confusion, but the vast majority of the field seemed to understand that rule,” Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast that also includes Jeff Gluck. “The only two were penalized, Brad Keselowski and Chase Elliott. And they both kind of said the same thing that they interpreted it the wrong way. But again, if this was so confusing, you would think by nature that more drivers would have violated this. What Elliott did was pretty egregious. It is very obvious that this should have been a penalty. What’s astounding to me was the reaction from Chase. It was a meltdown that you do not see from him at all. Maybe because it’s the Brickyard, maybe because it’s so hard to pass.”
