After Worst NASCAR Start in Next Gen Era, Ross Chastain Gives Candid Performance Review

Ross Chastain has not started the 2024 NASCAR season the way he would have expected. The driver of the #1 car finished 2023 on a high, taking the finale win at Phoenix, hoping to carry his momentum into the next season. Nine races in, and he seems to be struggling, with just one top-5 finish so far. Speaking to Bob Pockrass, Chastain expressed that the finishes have been a fair assessment of his performances so far.

Sitting 10th in the standings, the driver said that by and large, the team has deserved to finish outside top 5 most races.

“I had that string at the beginning of the year where I just couldn’t go fast enough on the track, so I tried to go faster on pit road — and sometimes I was even trying to go slow there and just sped.”

The best result for the team has been a fourth-place finish at Las Vegas, where Chastain believes they could have challenged Kyle Larson and Tyler Reddick for the win.

“From there, sixth to 14th is very accurate for a lot of our raw pace for some of the races this year,” concluded Chastain, who finished second in Championship in the first year of the Next Gen car in 2022.

As for the statistics, they do paint a similar picture; a picture where Chastain has failed to replicate bright starts in each of the previous two seasons.

Ross Chastain’s worst start to a NASCAR season statistically

After nine races in 2022, Chastain’s first season with Trackhouse Racing, he had one win (at COTA) and five top-5s, also managing to win at Talladega the next race, where NASCAR heads to this week. In 2023, although the #1 driver had zero wins at this stage, he had three top-5s and ran consistently at the top of the field.

Jump to 2024, Chastain has just one top-5 finish, clearly struggling to make a mark on most races. Last week at Texas, he was poised to get a top-3 finish but got turned by William Byron in the dying stages, eventually settling at the back of the pack.

With teammate Daniel Suarez already bagging a win and securing his spot in the playoffs, Chastain will certainly not want to leave it too late to fix his place in the top-16 drivers at the end of the regular season.