Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson are beginning a cat-and-mouse game for the regular season championship. Sunday’s race at New Hampshire saw Larson pull level with his teammate with 620 points atop the points table. With eight more races to go before the playoffs, the heat between the duo is gearing up for what could end up being one of the hottest championship battles in recent times.
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Riding the wave, Elliott opened up at New Hampshire on what things look like inside the Hendrick Motorsports compound. He said, “Kyle and I raced for a championship a couple of times. I can say with a lot of confidence that our meetings have never changed. How everyone talks or the things that are discussed or the information that is uploaded into our internal servers.”
“As far as setups and things of that nature, it’s all very straightforward. It’s all an open book and what you take and do with that from there is up to you.” The bottom line is that, from Elliott’s perspective, there isn’t any cutting-edge, unproductive rivalry between him and Larson. He further added that they both ultimately ought to lean on each other to heighten their capacities.
Larson has secured three victories thus far along with eight top-5s and nine top-10s. Elliott, on the other hand, has chosen to go the way of consistency. He has finished inside the top 20 in every single race this year and secured a win. The immediate next goal in front of them is to collect the 15 playoff points that winning the regular season championship brings.
Who does recent momentum favor? Larson or Elliott?
The New Hampshire race saw Larson be the only one from the Hendrick Motorsports garage to finish inside the top 10. Elliott finished in 18th place. However, the issue with Larson’s run is that he has been hit by momentary dips throughout the season having finished outside the top 30 in three races. He will have to rectify this to maximize his chances for the regular season championship.
Elliott had consecutive top-5 results at Sonoma and Iowa before the damp Magic Mile shot him back to a lowly finish for his standards. There’s no guarantee that a chance of strategies would provide him with better results in the upcoming races. The best course of action would be to continue doing what he has thus far and hope for fortune to grant him a few wins along the way.
