At Dover, Denny Hamlin became the first driver this season to bag four wins, yet it was Chase Elliott who climbed to the top of the driver standings despite scoring just one win from 21 regular-season starts. Elliott’s rise to the summit has been fueled by his consistency, with a season-long average finish of P10 and a steady accumulation of points. However, Kyle Petty has brushed aside that stat, arguing that leading the standings alone doesn’t make Elliott the best on track.
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Elliott currently has 702 points, seven top-five finishes, and twelve top-10s. He has finished inside the top-20 in all 21 races. And yet, Petty doesn’t see that as a significant accomplishment.
Appearing on GoPRNLive’s Fast Talk, Petty didn’t mince words before saying: “I’m tired of it. I don’t give a rat’s rear end that he’s (Elliott) the only guy that’s finished in the top-20 every race this year. Top-20 is not a stat, dude. It’s top-10, top-five, wins. That’s what we go after. So I don’t want to hear that one anymore. But what that does tell me is he’s just been consistent.”
If it wasn’t already clear, which it should be, Petty then doubled down on the fact that this is not the ideal kind of consistency. “He’s (Elliott) been incredibly consistent. Mostly mediocre consistent, which has led him to lead the championship,” he added.
“And that’s all you can say about it, is (that) he has run in the top-five or top-10, and run in the top-15 or so, but he’s just there. He’s vanilla. He’s right there in the middle. He’s not done anything special to lead the points.”
Petty also pointed to Hamlin’s four wins, Shane van Gisbergen’s three, and other front-running heroics as the real markers of excellence, likening Elliott’s approach to the race between “the tortoise and the hare”, where the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports driver is the former.
While Petty admitted Elliott’s consistency benefits the sport and his fan base, he made it clear he values drivers who dominate races rather than those who simply finish near the front. “He’s not my guy. So I’m sorry. That’s my critique on him leading the points at this time,” Petty concluded.
While crediting Elliott’s consistency, Petty emphasized that the driver needs to step up with standout performances to truly deserve his place at the top of the standings.
