Chase Elliott tops NASCAR standings as he looks for first win

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

RICHMOND, Va. — Chase Elliott isn’t sweating a season in which the rest of the Hendrick Motorsports team has already won a race.

And he shouldn’t. By one metric, Elliott is having the best season of them all — he sits tied with Ryan Blaney for the lead in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

He has earned plenty of stage points, finishing in the top three in four stages this year. And his posting four top-10 finishes, plus two others in the top-15, indicates that he has had the speed to challenge the leaders.

"Look, it's April 2," Elliott said Saturday, the day before his 14th-place finish at the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond. "This deal pays in November, so we’ve got a long ways to go."

Elliott is right. With the playoff system, a team wants to peak over the final 10 races. As long as a team is collecting significant points, the only pressure to win comes in earning playoff points, which are bonus points added to a driver’s total during the point resets at the start of each playoff round.

"I feel like we have a great team, and that's the part of the year we want to be prepared for most," Elliott said. "We want to win.

"We want to gain as many bonus points as you can — don't get me wrong — but there’s a lot of racing to be done."

While Elliott might not be getting too antsy, the sport’s most popular driver has a fan base itching for a win, especially on an oval. Elliott’s last oval victory came when he won the 2020 championship at Phoenix.

With the Cup Series heading to Martinsville on Saturday, that could be one of his best opportunities. Elliott traditionally races strong at the sport’s shortest (0.526 miles) oval. In 13 starts, he has one victory, five top-5 finishes, seven top-10s and 718 laps led.

But with the Next Gen car, most of the old stats can be thrown out the window. And with those stats, some of what a driver knows about how to make the car go fast can be thrown out, too.

The Next Gen car is symmetrical, meaning it doesn’t have the side force on the right that would help drivers catch the previous car if it were on the brink of spinning out.

"At Las Vegas [last month], I was really loose and just couldn’t find that comfort," Elliott said. "I’m potentially going to have to break some habits, and that’s a part of the deal.

"I have no problems with that. It’s OK to have to challenge yourself in a different area to get better. I’m all good with it."

While Vegas was a frustrating race because he didn’t have the speed he wanted, in the other weeks he has seemed to simply have hiccups at inopportune times. He had the contact with teammate Kyle Larson at Fontana. A bad pit stop and a spin foiled him at Phoenix. At Richmond, a bad adjustment midway through the race spoiled the potential for a good run.

"I feel like we’ve been solid at times," Elliott said. "Other than Vegas, I felt like there's been signs of pace for us.

"We just haven’t a put a whole day together, unfortunately."

With a team as solid as Hendrick Motorsports, putting everything together should happen. It should be just a matter of time.

"Keep doing our thing and just continue to try to move forward — that’s really all you can do," Elliott said. "Like I’ve said, there have been times throughout the year where I feel like we've been right where we need to be and having the pace on track, the car driving like I want it to."

And, frankly, it’s not a bad thing for your competition to not notice you all that much.

"Chase Elliott comes into this [Richmond] race I think as the points leader, right?" Denny Hamlin crew chief Chris Gabehart said after Hamlin’s Richmond win. "When I learned that leaving COTA last week, for some reason, it floored me.

"The reason was not that Chase and that team isn’t a fantastic team, but it was literally the opposite of us. I don’t think they’ve been stellar anywhere, but they’ve not had any whammies."

Elliott’s teammates have had a few whammies. William Byron is fourth in the standings, Alex Bowman seventh and Larson 12th.

Larson, the defending champion, said he feels good about how the Hendrick organization is performing and its learning of the new car.

"I haven't gotten the sense that anybody's lost or confused on how to get faster," Larson said. "The competition meetings are definitely a little bit longer than they were last year.

"There's just more to talk about throughout your weekend with practice and a new car. I don't get the sense from anybody in our meetings that we’re lost."

Elliott doesn’t feel lost. He just, at some point, will need to get that feeling of winning that he had with the previous car.

"For me personally, this is the first time I’ve kind of gone through that [type of change]," Elliott said. "I’ve had fun with it really just because it is different. This thing does drive different.

"I feel like it is a little less forgiving than what we had last year. ... As you go through some of these changes, you really have to have an open mind." 

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Thinking out loud

The new Joe Gibbs Racing pit stop choreography helped Hamlin win Sunday at Richmond, as the team had its two fastest pit stops of the season during the final stage.

So expect other teams to start working on it, and we'll see if it creates any havoc on pit road. The concern is that with both tire changers running in front of the car (instead of one from the front and one from the rear), the air hose could swing into the line of traffic.

That didn’t happen with JGR, which has been working on this formation for several months. It worked better than many would have predicted, and some skeptics questioned whether it was worth it. 

Hamlin would say it was worth it. Another organization will try it, too. It's just a matter of when.

Stat of the day

Sunday was the first time since September 2015 that Hendrick Motorsports had at least three drivers finish in the top-10 at Richmond.

Social spotlight

They said it

"We were going to make the playoffs. If we don’t, then [Joe Gibbs] should fire me. Instead, now I’m going to ask for a raise." — Denny Hamlin

Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!