Chase Elliott: Round of 8 will be ‘really tough’
Entering the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, 2020 champion Chase Elliott starts the round as the first seed with a 31-point advantage over the cutline.
In the last six seasons, Elliott has been a championship-eligible driver in the Round of 8 and has advanced to the Championship 4 twice – in 2020 and 2021.
Still, Elliott acknowledges that this Round of 8 — consisting of Las Vegas, Homestead-Miami and Martinsville — will be a “really tough round.”
“Vegas was a struggle for us in the spring,” Elliott said. “Homestead, we’ve just been really hit-or-miss there. We did have a test there a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully, we’ve learned from that.”
He also added, “Martinsville, it’s just going to be about how you qualify because I don’t see anybody passing there. We’ll see how it goes.”
Martinsville is the only Round of 8 track where Elliott, an 18-time Cup winner, has won.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver’s best finishes at Las Vegas and Homestead-Miami are second-place finishes, one time each.
Elliott didn’t earn any playoff points last week at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course, but his 31 total playoff points earned in races this season — between five race victories and six stage wins — is the most among the competition.
“Try to bring our A-game,” Elliott said of the Round of 8. “It would have been nice to have some more points from (Charlotte), but we didn’t and we’ll try again out in Las Vegas.”
SOURCES
Racing-Reference.info
Toyota Racing
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Dominic Aragon View All
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book "All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story" with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.