When William Byron was leading at Iowa Speedway, his teammates were grappling with each other. After an on-track conflict, Kyle Larson hurled a round of expletives at some rivals, which included his own teammate, Chase Elliott. With the 2025 playoffs rapidly approaching, this in-house animosity within Hendrick Motorsports left fans baffled. Although both Elliott and Larson brushed off the scuffle, fresh challenges await Elliott in the races ahead.

William Byron is currently the points leader in the regular season championship. Chase Elliott trails him close behind. After finishing in the top 20 consistently for 23 races in 2025 and finally breaking it at Watkins Glen, Elliott is eager to take up another challenge.

Chase Elliott faces a thorny path ahead

Almost a month ago, Chase Elliott had toppled William Byron. In Dover, the No. 9 HMS Chevy driver led for 238 laps and finished in 6th place. With Byron’s 31st-place finish, Elliott got an advantage over his teammate of 16 points in the championship standings. However, Byron swiftly took back his crown. What is more, last Sunday’s Watkins Glen race turned out to be a disaster for Elliott. He broke his top 20 streak due to a seemingly avoidable mistake where his spotter mistook a pit stop. The fall of pace landed him in 26th place by the end, a surprisingly disappointing finish given Elliott’s twin victories at The Glen. So now Elliott is banking his resources entirely on the following races.

Chase Elliott is currently 42 points below William Byron in the run for the title. In a recent interview with Peter Stratta, Elliott admitted how difficult it would be to defeat his HMS teammate. “Yeah, man, it’s gonna be tough, for sure. You know, I told y’all last week, you have to qualify good at Watkins Glen. You have to qualify good here, and you have to not crash at Daytona. So, we already didn’t do the first one. And more of that stuff you don’t do, the harder the road’s gonna be, we know that.”

Chase Elliott’s chances do have a silver lining. He has four top-five finishes in his last eight starts at Richmond Raceway, although he missed the spring 2023 race due to injury. Through 17 Richmond starts, Elliott has an average finish of 10.7. What is more, he set the pace for the Hendrick Motorsports contingent at the upcoming Cook Out 400 race. Elliott turned in a lap of 22.361 seconds to qualify fifth, best among his teammates. Alex Bowman recorded a time of 22.397 seconds to nab the ninth starting spot. William Byron will start 14th after a lap of 22.461, and Kyle Larson will start 30th.

While Chase Elliott navigates the path to beating his teammate, he also reflects on his upbringing.

Having strong pillars of support

The path of a legend is never alone. There are people to guide them on their journey, and Chase Elliott had his parents for this task. Bill Elliott, presently 69 years of age, was once a legendary fixture on the NASCAR Cup Series grid. Among his grand achievements in the 1980s and 1990s were the 1988 Cup Series title, 44 race trophies, and, of course, 16 Most Popular Driver awards. Like Elliott was popular among the common masses, he was also a hero to his son. That is because both Bill Elliott and his wife, Cindy, made it an easy journey for their son when he was growing up. This massive support proved crucial in carving out Elliott’s racing career.

In an interview with Lindsay Czarniak, Chase Elliott hailed his parents for giving him the space and the freedom to make his own career choices. He said, “The way they kind of brought me up and allowed me to live my life and to do the things that I wanted to do, it was always my choice. Racing was always my choice. If I went home, whether I was 10th, 15th, or 20th, if I went home and said, ‘Hey, mom and dad. I don’t want to do this anymore,’ it would have been totally fine. They always made that really apparent to me.”

In harnessing energy from his yesteryears, Chase Elliott is shaping an ambitious path for himself. For now, that path points to the regular season championship – let us see if he can finish it or not.