Chase Elliott will enter the Round of 12 at New Hampshire clinging to a five-point cushion above the cutline. His margin nearly vanished at Bristol, where a crash threatened to derail his playoff run.
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During the final race of the Round of 16 at Bristol, the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports driver dropped from the top lane to the bottom and clipped John Hunter Nemechek. The contact sent Elliott into the wall and ended his night, leaving him 38th. It marked his sixth finish outside the top 10 in the last eight races.
Although Elliott avoided being overtaken by teammate Alex Bowman, the first driver below the cutline, the threat was real. Bowman ran near the front, and a win would have vaulted him into the next round at Elliott’s expense.
The 2020 Cup champion advanced to the Round of 12 thanks to earlier points, despite the Bristol crash and a 17th at Darlington. His third-place run at Gateway provided the buffer he needed.
After Bristol, Elliott admitted the toll it took. “At that time, I thought our night, I thought our season was over, to be honest… Had a brief conversation with (crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) right when I got out of the car. I was like, ‘Man, is that going to knock us out?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ At that point, obviously, we’re just bummed.”
“I just feel like, yeah, you’re kind of in a spot where, ‘Man, we really didn’t deserve to be here based on the week before, let’s go and make the very most of it… I just feel like there’s nothing to lose for us at this point.”
It’s been rough for @chaseelliott lately, who spoke to @SiriusXMNASCAR about some tense moments after his Bristol wreck and his outlook for the weeks ahead.https://t.co/J52n8N55bp
— Motorsport (@Motorsport) September 18, 2025
Elliott admitted that it’s been one of those years in general where he has struggled to make it to the cut. He was really encouraged by their Gateway, to be frank, and he thought there was a lot of really good stuff that went on there throughout the course of the event.
Elliott now looks to New Hampshire, drawing confidence from its similarities to Gateway. But history isn’t on his side. Hendrick Motorsports hasn’t won there since July 2012, and Elliott himself has logged only three top-10s in 11 Cup starts at the one-mile oval in the Northeast. It remains to be seen if he can pick up his performance as he tries to get his hands on the elusive second Cup Series title.
