Chase Elliott’s championship hopes now relaxation solely on Martinsville. After a crash at Talladega ended his day early, the Hendrick Motorsports driver finds himself in a must-win situation getting into the ultimate race earlier than the Championship 4.
Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic mentioned Elliott’s outlook on The Teardown. They provided up their perspective on how the No. 9 crew arrived at this level, and what it’ll take to maintain their title desires alive.
“Elliott is 62 factors out, and to your level about randomness and all the things like that, he says they put themselves in that place. They didn’t handle the pit highway sequence effectively sufficient, they price themselves some positions, they usually ended up getting again in that wreck,” Bianchi defined. “So primarily based off that, it doesn’t really feel prefer it was random. They didn’t really feel like they executed effectively sufficient on pit highway, and due to that, they put themselves in a foul spot.”
Regardless of the setback, Elliott nonetheless has one final alternative to salvage his playoff run, and Martinsville has been a stable monitor for the Georgia native over time. He owns one victory there together with a number of top-five finishes. However with the factors hole too broad to beat on consistency alone, solely a win will punch his ticket to Phoenix and maintain his championship hopes alive.
“I really don’t assume that is tremendous devastating to Elliott’s playoff hopes within the sense that I really feel like they had been just about going to should go win Martinsville anyway, until they received at present,” Gluck added. “If you happen to’re not going to win at present, primarily based on how the playoffs have been unfolding — look the place [William] Byron was going to be. Even when he completed high 5, he was nonetheless going to be an honest quantity of factors out.
“… I requested Elliott about Hendrick’s flat monitor program, as a result of we had been speaking concerning the good points they’ve made on the intermediate tracks, regardless that he didn’t get the end he wished final week. He was actually pumped up about how effectively they ran at Vegas and the pace they confirmed, other than the outcome.
“However he mentioned, ‘Hear, I nonetheless don’t know concerning the flat monitor program, however we have now two extra report playing cards developing the following two weeks. And I maintain telling you guys, all you must do in these playoffs is purchase your self extra time to attempt to hit on one thing. So we’ll discover out if we’ve purchased ourselves extra time to determine one thing out since New Hampshire.’
“Actually, New Hampshire indicated that the very best flat monitor program belongs to Penske. So we’ll see if they will maintain that up. However yeah, only a wild kind of sequence there — the playoff image appears very clear now, however it’s additionally broad open.”
Alas, Elliott isn’t the one driver dealing with a must-win state of affairs. Ryan Blaney sits 47 factors beneath the cutline, William Byron is 36 again and reigning Cup champion Joey Logano trails by 38. Blaney has historical past on his facet although. He’s received the final two playoff races at Martinsville, together with final yr when he entered 38 factors out.
After Talladega, Elliott was blunt concerning the job forward. He’s calm, cool and picked up, however time will inform if he can get the job completed: “I’m trying ahead to Martinsville,” Elliott proclaimed. “Received another shot at it.”
