Chase Elliott was still in the hunt until the final corner of the Daytona 500, before a wreck sparked by Riley Herbst wiped him as well as Brad Keselowski out. He has already turned the page now and has set his sights on a third Cup Series win at his home track, the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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The pieces also seem to be falling into place for Elliott. Rain washed out qualifying, pushing the metric to set the grid. By that math, Elliott will start from row two.
Besides that, the Hendrick Motorsports driver also has an average finish of 11.4 across 13 starts and 9.14 since the overhaul of Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2021. The stats make him one of the hot favorites. Elliott is also leaning into the challenge, even though he is also getting used to the dynamics of the new Chevrolet body that made its Cup debut last week.
“I thought we had a really, a really good week all the way up to the DAYTONA 500, from a balanced standpoint,” Elliott told Speedway Media, ahead of Sunday’s race at Atlanta.
“Throughout the race, I thought there were some things that we could improve upon. So, certainly, I think we challenged all of our guys to try and find a little bit that we could use to make some of those things better for this week,” he continued.
“But there were some high spots. Whichever side of that scenario you were on, whether you were getting pushed or doing the pushing, I thought that we did a better job of that more efficiently, which has been an area of emphasis that we wanted to improve with this new body change,” Elliott added.
“I think from now, it’s just like, okay, how do we fine-tune our balances and get everything exactly like we want… So, hopefully we can continue to process all those small details and just make it a bit better, which I think we will,” he said confidently.
The new Chevy body brings a larger hood dome, a reworked front grille, and reshaped side panels. It is intended to move the needle on track and iron out issues from last season.
Elliott believes the focus for his camp has been to improve on the skills of pushing and being pushed, which pays dividends on drafting tracks. Even on the final lap at Daytona, he surged into the fight due to a push from Zane Smith, who locked onto the rear of the No. 9 and drove him forward.
Elliott plans to build on that rhythm, knowing that at Atlanta, timing and trust can turn a run into a trip to Victory Lane.
