“I Didn’t Want to Wreck Kyle (Larson)” – Ross Chastain Addresses Change in Driving Style, Hints Toward Rick Hendrick’s Influence

There’s been a lot of concern about what has happened to Ross Chastain. Ever since the comments made by Rick Hendrick against the Trackhouse Racing driver, many have observed a dip in his performance and his speed. This has led to speculations about whether he was given an internal talk, whether his racecar has been slowed down, or whether he has changed his driving style.

But none of those things are true if you ask Chastain himself. Because the #1 driver recently set the record straight about why, in the last few weeks, there’s been a dip in his performances, whether Hendrick’s comments had an impact on his approach or his speed, what he aims to do.

And most importantly, what he absolutely cannot do.

Ross Chastain claims he’s had to unlearn a lot of habits from the past

In a recent interview with SiriusXM, Chastain was asked whether he has changed his driving style in the past few weeks, to which he replied, “Look, it’s an evolution for me, I’m evolving, I’m learning. I’m 30 years old.”

“I’ve been in the Cup series in the current competitive equipment now, this is my third year. And I’ve had to unlearn a lot of habits that I learned from fundamentally as a 12-year-old … through late models and back of the pack Truck, Xfinity, and Cup up through middle of the pack and now to front, there’s a lot of habits that I have learned that don’t exactly work all the time when you’re in the spotlight,” he described.

“So I think every conversation I have, and take bits and pieces from it and inform my opinion of what my next is, but I’m human. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to apologize and then I’m going to learn from it and as long as I wake up and try to do the best I can, that’s really all I can do.”

Has Chastain changed his driving style after all?

Coming back to the original question and its response, Chastain claimed that no, he hasn’t changed his driving style and that nothing has happened there. Having said that, he hinted towards the impact of Hendrick or potentially higher-ups in the Chevy camp who made him introspect.

“I took a lot of opinions from a lot of people that are very powerful and I learned from it. I’m going to continue to learn from it. I’m going to go out there and drive. That’s what I get paid to do,” he described. Chastain further claimed that his team owners pay him to drive their racecars as fast as he can every week, and besides, he just cannot change who he truly is on a whim.

“We’re not robots. I can’t be programmed to do a certain thing one week and do a very different thing the next week. For me, it’s humanly impossible,” he claimed. “So I’m going to drive it to the limit, I’m going to occasionally misstep and I just need to maybe minimize the number of times, even I admit it’s a little high. But we’ll get back on the other side of it, I truly believe. And I know what’s inside of me and I know what my intentions are.”

“I didn’t want to wreck Kyle (Larson), I wrecked myself at Darlington.” Chastain clarified that it was he who hit the wall the hardest, that it was he who took himself out.