Chase Elliott emphasizes need for NASCAR teams to decide when to pit, change tires ahead of Nashville

Chase Elliott wasn’t a fan of the non-competitive pit stops last Sunday at New Hampshire and would prefer if NASCAR allow teams to make decisions for themselves.

Speaking with Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports ahead of Sunday’s Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway, Elliott said that by mandating cars come down pit road at the same time, it makes everyone even more identical than they already are.

Also on the topic of wet-weather tires, Chase Elliott said it is pivotal that they get to a point where teams should be allowed to make the decision of when to pit and change tires. pic.twitter.com/n4fLcrlqi3

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 30, 2024

“Part of the appeal to the NASCAR Cup Series is having freedom to call your race like you wanna call it,” Elliott said. “And I just felt like that was totally taken out of the equation last weekend and that was a bummer. That wasn’t why we finished bad or anything, but just from my standpoint, it would have been nice — even if they were going to make you stay on the wet, to at least give you the opportunity to pit or stay out. It turned into a K&N race… Anytime that I’ve been a part of a race where they start mandating when you have to come in and have to put on tires, it just makes everyone even more the same than we already are.”

Chase Elliott calls for freedom for teams to make own decisions

NASCAR brought the Goodyear wet-weather tires to New Hampshire this past weekend and ordered all teams to use them for the remaining 82 laps coming out of the two-hour, 15-minute rain delay. During multiple yellow flag periods, NASCAR ordered all the cars to come down pit road to take tires, thus taking teams’ individual strategy out of the equation.

The reason for this came down to safety with pit road still very much wet as the race resumed. NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer admitted they’re still learning as it pertains to the wet-weather tire procedure.

“There’s still some things that we’re learning through this process,” Sawyer said. “In all honestly, we’d like to be out of the tire business. We’d like to just turn that over to the teams. But as we continue to take small steps and we learn, eventually we’ll get there. We just wanted to do this in the safest way possible.”