There’s no denying that Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott are two of the biggest names in NASCAR today. But while there’s a clear winner between the two in terms of who’s had a better career so far, what about the question of popularity? It’s an interesting question at this point in time considering the very obvious popularity of Elliott but also knowing the fact that the #9 driver had a disastrous season, especially compared to his Hendrick teammate Larson.
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So in order to determine which Hendrick star has an edge over the other in terms of popularity, let’s consider their social media presence and the current Google trend numbers (at the time of writing).
Chase Elliott has 929.7k followers on X and 479k on Instagram, the total coming out to be nearly 1.4 million followers across the two major social media platforms. Kyle Larson, on the other hand, has 498.8k followers on X and 335k on Instagram, a total of 833.8k followers.
Clearly, in terms of social media presence, Elliott has a huge upper hand.
In terms of Google Trends, Elliott has an average interest rating of 33 over the last week in the US, while Larson has a rating of 29.
So based on two metrics, it can be concluded that despite his disappointing season, Chase Elliott is still more popular than Kyle Larson, who had a pretty successful campaign in NASCAR and beyond.
Chase Elliott could concede his crown this season to one of his friends
For the last five years, Chase Elliott has been crowned the most popular driver in the NASCAR Cup Series. However, this year, his crown could slip away from him and instead go to one of his close friends and rivals, Ryan Blaney.
The Team Penske driver ended up winning the Cup championship and had a far more successful season compared to Elliott. Moreover, Blaney has been one of the fan favorites in NASCAR for a while, having a strong social media presence with over half a million followers to his name.
Anyhow, the Most Popular Driver will be revealed on November 30th and it will be only then that we’ll learn if Chase Elliott will win the award for the 6th year in a row or if he would concede it to his pal Ryan Blaney.
