MARTINSVILLE, Va: Early in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, it looked like Chase Elliott had a car capable of contending for his first NASCAR Cup Series win of the season.
But over the course of 400 laps at the iconic Virginia short track, Elliott struggled with the handling of his No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet. The issue ultimately kept him from mounting a serious challenge against the dominant Toyotas leading the field.
During a long green-flag run in Stage 3, Chase Elliott continued his steady climb through the field, eventually overtaking his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson for fourth with fewer than 50 laps remaining.
Elliott did his best to reel in Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell as they navigated traffic in second and third, but his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet lacked the grip needed to push any higher.
He ultimately settled for fourth—matching his best result of the season, which also came with a fourth-place finish at Circuit of the Americas in February after being spun on Lap 1 of the year’s first road course race.
“Yeah, I thought our car was really good, honestly,” said Elliott after the race. “Thought our team did a good job yesterday, leading into the weekend, certainly getting this thing where it needed to be I thought for a balance for today.”
Elliott capitalized early on his outside-pole starting spot, keeping polesitter Christopher Bell within reach. In lapped traffic, Elliott made his move, taking the lead from the Joe Gibbs Racing driver on Lap 24 and holding it through the first caution at Lap 32 for debris in Turn 4.
With strategy varying throughout the race, Elliott cycled back to the front on Lap 93 to begin Stage 2 and led 33 laps before being passed by Denny Hamlin, who went on to dominate by leading 274 laps on the day.
From there, Elliott focused on maintaining track position in case a late caution shook things up. In the end, his fourth-place run marked his second top-five and fourth top-10 finish through the first seven races of the season.
Elliott believed his best chance to win the race slipped away at the end of Stage 2, when he lost control of the race and couldn’t find a way back around Denny Hamlin.
At a place like Martinsville, having control of the race is everything — it forces the rest of the field into a vulnerable position, lacking the preferred lane and the momentum needed to navigate the track’s tight, flat corners.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t do a great job getting to him,” Elliott explained.
“We really, really needed control there. When you get into the second half of these races, it just gets so hard to make ground up. You saw that with Christopher (Bell) pressuring Denny. It just means a lot to have control, and unfortunately, I couldn’t get that back for us.
“But overall, it was a really good effort by this No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet team. We had a really good Chevy today, but we just need a little bit more.”
While the day was solid for Elliott, he made it clear that “solid” isn’t good enough. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet emphasized the need for his team to start delivering more than just respectable finishes.
In the Cup Series, winning is everything — and for the Dawsonville, Ga. native, the search continues for his first victory since Texas Motor Speedway last spring.
“Solid day,” sounded Elliott. “We need more than solid. So, we’ll keep trucking.”
Elliott heads to Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for NASCAR’s throwback weekend — third in the championship standings and looks to better his 12th and 11th place finishes from 2024.
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) @Knighter01 or email at [email protected].
