Chase Elliott and the No. 9 team have done a lot of things well this season. What they have failed to figure out is qualifying.
Elliott has qualified in the top 10 just seven times this season. He has an average starting position of 16.9. Still, Elliott has found a way to pick up 15 top 10 finishes, tied for third-most among drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series. Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was another example of Elliott grinding his way to a solid finish. He started back in 27th and finished fifth.
Elliott will gladly take a top five finish in the postseason. Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic is concerned that Elliott’s struggles in qualifying will eventually catch up to him.
“Impressive that he rebounded to finish fifth. Good points day, not a track that’s one of his best, we know Hendrick’s issues here. After the race, he told NBC Sports, he owned it, ‘My fault.’ It’s great accountability… but this is not an issue that just popped up. This is a season-long thing of him not qualifying well and it’s concerning,” Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “I genuinely feel like it’s going to bite them in the butt at some point.”
Elliott spent much of the 70-lap opening stage clawing his way through the field. He got up to 16th, but that meant he missed out on valuable stage points. He finished seventh in Stage 2 thanks to two-tire call by crew chief Alan Gustafson, earning him four stage points. Elliott complimented his team after the race.
“I thought everybody on pit road did a great job with a terrible stall,” Elliott said. “Hats off to our pit crew, really everybody across the board on our NAPA team just executed a good race. Alan called a good race obviously staying out there at the end. We made our bed there with running long at the end.”
Chase Elliott sitting near the playoff cutline after New Hampshire
Elliott will head into this Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway seventh in the playoff standings, +14 above the cutline. Bianchi wants to see Elliott and the No. 9 team “up their game” in qualifying.
“On a track that’s really hard to pass, though I thought today’s race was competitive, track position is important. At a time where we talk about how close the competition is and how everybody is running just fractions of a second apart from each other, the difference between starting toward the back and the front is everything,” Bianchi said. “You go back to Dover this year where he started on the pole, and they talked about how it’s so different up here and how you run your race and how you manage your race, and you can be in control of it. Instead of being in control of the race, they’re having to spend all of Stage 1 having to play catch up and you can never get into a rhythm.
“Yeah, he finished fifth today — great. If you can keep knocking out fifth-place finishes, that’s gonna get you to Phoenix. But you’re not gonna be able to do that every week because things are going to happen. These points are so valuable, especially starting this round. The first round, you can get away with it a little bit more, but it’s starting this round, it’s really about upping your game. They, to me, in qualifying, need to up their game.”