Chase Elliott Gets Desperate to Make a Move in Playoffs After ‘Unpleasant’ Bristol Run

Before the Bristol night race, four drivers were on the chopping block. The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs’ Round of 16 finale saw Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Josh Berry, and Shane van Gisbergen eliminated from the playoffs. Among them, Bowman finished the best, grabbing eighth place at the Bass Pro Shops race. He was dangerously close to a victory, which would have seriously jeopardized his teammate’s ordeal. The latter is concerned about the jeopardy he put himself in, though.

Chase Elliott has been one of the top championship contenders entering the playoffs. However, his Atlanta victory and fierce consistency took a backseat in the first round. Finishing 17th, 3rd, and then 38th, Elliott is seriously revamping his strategy at present.

Chase Elliott’s season flashed before his eyes

Quite literally, so. The No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver entered Bristol sitting in the 9th spot with a 28-point cushion. Given his recent opinions against NASCAR’s playoff format, Chase Elliott may have briefly forgotten his position. But the harrowing wreck on lap 311 reminded him in a jarring manner. Elliott appeared to cut down in front of John Hunter Nemechek, who was getting pushed into the corner by Denny Hamlin. Nemechek’s car then sent Elliott’s No. 9 to the wall, the latter leaking fluid soon after. “Man, is that going to knock us out?” Elliott gasped to his crew chief, Alan Gustafson. The latter replied, “Yeah, I think so.”

It was only after revisiting the incident post-race that Chase Elliott realized he had advanced into the Round of 12. But having teetered on the brink of disaster, the 2020 Cup Series champion is now getting into a war footing. Elliott told Sirius XM NASCAR Radio, “I just feel like, yeah, you’re kind of in a spot where, ‘Man, we really didn’t deserve to be here based on the week before, let’s go and make the very most of it…I just feel like there’s nothing to lose for us at this point. We’ve got to make something happen, get some life, and get our heads down and just grind it out these next three weeks.”

What rattled Chase Elliott was the hour and a half of uncertainty following his wreck, when he believed he was out of the playoffs. “At that time, I thought our night, I thought our season was over, to be honest,” he said. However, Alex Bowman’s 8th-place finish was not enough to guarantee him an advance, so Elliott survived. “It took some time to kind of realize the situation and what it was going to take to knock us out. I got to watch it on TV with everybody else. It wasn’t the most pleasant hour and a half or so of my life watching, but it worked out, fortunately. Got really lucky with that, no question.”

HMS does not have the most spectacular history at New Hampshire, the site of the next playoff race. The organization last won in New Hampshire in July 2012. Chase Elliott has only three top-10 finishes in 11 Cup starts at the 1-mile track in the Northeast. Yet the No. 9 driver is looking forward to it, hoping to capitalize on his 3rd-place finish in Gateway. Elliott said, “I think New Hampshire has some similarities to Gateway, so I’m looking forward to see how we stack up in that regard.”

While the HMS driver focuses on his troubles, Chase Elliott has already lost the claim over his season-long record.

The crown of consistency is gone now

In the mad scramble to retain his playoff spot, Chase Elliott lost his 2025 regular-season sparkle. Until getting into a wreck with Kyle Busch at Watkins Glen, Elliott consistently finished inside the top 20 since the 2024 playoffs. Thereby, he owned the right to boast the best average finish. However, Elliott’s 38th-place finish in Bristol marked his sixth finish outside the top 10 in the last eight races. Now, we have a new winner; Christopher Bell, the Bristol winner, leads the field with a 12.48 average finish for the 2025 season. Chase Briscoe is in second at 12.69, and Elliott has dropped to third at 12.72. Bell has pursued Elliott for much of the year in this crucial consistency metric, and this marks a significant achievement.

Moving forward, Christopher Bell has big opportunities to capitalize on his four wins this season. He is the defending winner at New Hampshire, owning a 12.2 average finish. It is 12.4 at Kansas and 10.0 at the Charlotte Roval, where Bell already has a win. Bell exuded his confidence in a Dale Jr Download episode: “Yeah, I mean, I think it’s all in our hands. Certainly, there are three racetracks that we run really well at. I haven’t won at Kansas, but I’ve won at the other two, and we have high expectations and goals of ourselves and hopefully, uh, you know, hopefully we can go out there and execute.”

Going against such strong rivals, Chase Elliott has his path cut out for him. Let’s wait and see how the HMS star gathers its pace.