A late-race strategy call paid off for Chase Elliott and the No. 9 team at Phoenix. During the final caution period of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Freeway Insurance 500, Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson elected to keep his driver out on the racetrack.
Elliott restarted second, and while the Hendrick Motorsports star would ultimately not contend for the win, he brought his No. 9 Chevrolet home third on Sunday. It was Elliott’s first top-five finish since a fifth-place result at Richmond, which came 10 races ago.
Elliott moved up to 10th in the points standings with the result. However, the 2020 Cup champion is a longshot to win his second title as he is 149 points out of the lead, which is nearly two full races worth of points.
Chase Elliott Nabs Much-Needed Third-Place Run at Phoenix
When Chase Elliott decided to stay on the racetrack for what would be the last restart of the race, he was taken aback by how few drivers elected to do the same. For the final restart, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs were the only other drivers who stayed off the pit lane.
“Honestly, I was really surprised. I thought more people would stay [out]. I’m curious to see if those guys had scuffs or if they had already burnt their scuffs earlier and had stickers. … In our situation, the call was going to be two [tires] and it wasn’t going to be two scuffs and that didn’t really do a whole lot for me in my head at that point in time. I thought maybe if [we] got a couple row buffer, it might work out OK,” Elliott said.
Fortunately for NASCAR’s most popular driver, the strategy call paid off in his favor. After weeks with a top-five finish, Elliott was pleased to leave the desert with a solid finish.
“We were having a solid day and I thought, ‘Oh, here we go. I’m going to ruin it for us by doing this,’ but really proud of our Kelley Blue Book team for just putting together a solid day. Been a while since we’ve had one, so that was nice and made some legitimate improvements, I thought, which was encouraging,” Elliott said.
Chase Elliott Finds Some Daylight After 2026 Struggles
Elliott won two races early in the season at Martinsville and Texas, respectively. Unfortunately for the HMS driver, it has been a year of struggle since then.
Since his last win at Texas in May, Elliott has only posted two top-five finishes — a fifth place at Richmond and a third place on Sunday at Phoenix. Although Elliott appeared to be a championship contender early on, mid-season struggles plagued the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott.
After 33 races, Elliott has posted two wins, seven top fives, and 12 top 10s.