Ross Chastain Admits Trackhouse Struggles After Hamlin Flags Chevy Gap

Ross Chastain is sounding the alarm at Trackhouse Racing. Following Denny Hamlin’s critique of the Chevrolet performance gap, the No. 1 driver admitted his team is currently struggling to maintain pace at NASCAR’s top level.

In a recent interaction with Eric Estepp on the Out Of The Groove podcast, the No. 1 Chevy Camaro driver for Trackhouse noted that while they aren’t the only team struggling this year, it is hard for any team to maintain peak momentum consistently at the top level.

“That’s the great thing about competing at this level. It’s really, really hard, and we’re not the only ones struggling, but we are struggling bad right now, and we know it,” he said.

Recently, on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin highlighted a significant performance gap within the Chevrolet camp, mentioning that Chevrolet heavily favors Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) with resources and development at the expense of other affiliated teams.

“I mean it’s certainly wild that there’s such a disparity in the manufacturers, like when I look at Hendrick, and obviously, they are the flagship Chevy team, but then, like the other teams that get the ‘same information,’ the same is, it’s like way off, like last. So, it’s crazy,” Hamlin had said.

Chastain also highlighted that his own performance on the track has some room for improvement, even as the team collectively looks for solutions to improve its situation in this season. He pinpointed one specific issue with his performance at the race track.

“I just need to first focus on the entry of the corner in my opinion and get into the corner better, and then we’ll slowly step through it, and at Kansas, I could not get into the corner fast at all. I was slow.

So, for us, that’s where it starts, where do I first lift off the gas, because that’s where the loss in lap time comes from. We are trying big, big swings and not seeing the results that we want.”