The race at Waktins Glen was a disaster for Chase Elliott, who really needed a win to get into the playoffs. Even though he was making progress during the first half of the race, the Hendrick Motorsports driver ran out of fuel after the team pushed for an aggressive strategy but made some miscalculations.
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Following the race and a disappointing 32nd-place finish for the 2020 Cup Series champion, crew chief Alan Gustafson received severe backlash from the fan base. However, while speaking ahead of this weekend’s race at Daytona, Elliott cleared the air about his thoughts regarding the criticism against his crew chief.
Chase Elliott talks about what the fans claimed about his crew chief
While speaking with the media, Elliott was asked what he thought of the criticism his crew chief received over the week. He responded, “That’s not something he and I worry about. He didn’t worry about social media, and I don’t either. We have a lot of trust in one another and the job that we do.”
“I think a lot of him, I think he is a great dude, a great crew chief. I don’t really care what anybody says about that, I work with him every week, and no one else does. It’s kinda unfair for anybody to feel like they have a good hold on what our team sees.”
Chase Elliott said the issue that caused him to run out of gas was not as obvious as it might have looked to those watching. And he doesn’t care if some fans believe he needs a crew chief other than Alan Gustafson. pic.twitter.com/KViQG4nt90
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) August 25, 2023
“What we talk about every week and the things that we go to work on together. And I’m really proud of that. We have been working together for about eight years now so I am not worried about him.”
Elliott thinks the fuel incident was just an unfortunate error
Speaking further, Elliott spoke about the incident and mentioned how he thought it was just purely an error from the team and not anything else. He mentioned, “I don’t really think it was anything of a trick or anything like that. It was just an unfortunate error that was bad timing more than anything. But it wasn’t as obvious as I would say though, average watcher would think it was.”
That small mistake ended up possibly ending Elliott’s chances of getting into the playoffs this year. Now in order to secure himself into the postseason he would have to win at Daytona.
However, the task of winning at Daytona would be a daunting one for him, considering his strength lies in road courses and not the superspeedways.
