2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott broke his 42-race winless streak last Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. He showed a lot of maturity on his way to the No:9 teams sixth win in the Next-Gen era, as he slowly moved his way up the track, and fend off challenges from Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain for the win.
It was Chase Elliott’s first win since Talladega playoff race in 2022 and his lack of consistency since then has been a major topic of discussion. He ended the 2023 season winless and failed to secure a playoff spot. A snowboarding injury ahead of the third race of last year was the major reason behind his winless streak as it took him a lot of time to recover and regain momentum.
During the period the HMS driver received a lot of criticism, especially from the media about his form and questions were asked about his prowess’ behind the wheels of Next-Gen cars. Now the No:9 team crew chief Alan Gustafson has come forward addressing this criticism after Texas win and called some of them out.
You’re talking about Chase like he can’t drive this car, I mean, he really can and he does really good. I don’t, the winless streak is, I can think of certainly one untimely caution, there was really a couple of times, you know, Charlotte I feel like it was, we had by far the best car at the Roval, right, and the caution comes out and different things happen obviously out of the car. When you’re struggling, yeah, you just kind of have to grind it out a bit more. Alan Gustafson said.
Alan Gustafson listed Chase Elliott’s success in the Next-Gen era
The championship winning crew chief went on to list out his driver’s accomplishment in the Next-Gen era. He pointed out that Elliott won five races and the regular season championship in 2022 and only the snowboarding accident is what cost him the momentum in 2023. Gustafson added that so far in 2024 Elliott has solid average running position and results.
I guess my point is, it’s not, if you look at his body of work in this car, regular-season champion the first year of the car, five wins to the playoffs, runs two races, Daytona 500 which we all know is a crapshoot, finishes second at Fontana which is pretty good, has a snowboarding accident, breaks his leg, has maybe not as good a year as we would have…Now we start this season with this car … fourth in points, one win, three top-5s, average running position before we started was fourth, what am I missing? Gustafson said.
The Chevy driver has put him in the championship conversation alongside his teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron with the victory. He now would be hoping to contend for more wins in the coming races and place him in a good position for a potential championship win.
More must-reads: