Chase Elliott 'happy' with late-race strategy, P5 finish at Sonoma Raceway

While he wasn’t able to get the win on Sunday, Chase Elliott was just fine with his crew chief’s late call to stay out. Even though Elliott was on worn-out tires compared to the other NASCAR drivers in the top 10, he was able to drive hard and keep his position enough to come away with a P5 finish.

Early on, Elliott stayed out to flip the running order. It worked, but only so much. In the end, Martin Truex Jr. was having a dominant day and couldn’t be stopped. Elliott will take what his team gave him and move on to the next one.

“Feel like needed to do something a little different with strategy so we did,” Chase Elliott explained, via Bob Pockrass. “That put us in a position to really have to stay out there at the end and ultimately I think it was the right call. I was hoping, man I was just hoping more guys would do that, you know there was a handful that were on our strategy. The 4 and a few others and I would have loved to see all of them stay. I don’t know if it would have been enough to hold Martin off, but you get strung out there for just a few laps and you never know. But nonetheless didn’t work out. To get a top-5 I was pretty happy with that.

“A good day and I was proud of how we did it there at the end. We were in a not-so-ideal situation on tires with no buffer and was able to hang on to fifth. So, yeah, proud of how we finished up there thought that was one of our better runs there at the end. Good to finish strong.”

Chase Elliott was happy with the strategy and the execution of it with a fifth-place finish at Sonoma. pic.twitter.com/qUpI7ND0je

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 11, 2023

Chase Elliott needs to get a win

With his situation this season, Chase Elliott does need to get a win soon. There are only 10 more races to grab a regular season victory and get into the playoffs. Between breaking his leg to start the season and his one-race suspension last week, Elliott is in a tough spot.

There was a time when Elliott led the race on Sunday in Sonoma. At that moment, the Hendrick Motorsports driver needed a caution to flip the field and give him a chance to race up front. It didn’t happen and late in the race, others like Kyle Busch and Chris Buescher were able to get by the No. 9 with his worn-out tires.

While he tried hard to switch up the order, it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get other drivers to stay out longer with him and eventually had to hit pit road himself.

Chase Elliott is capable of winning almost any week. It just has to come together. These Next Gen cars are very evenly matched and it is hard to compete right now. The worst-case scenario for Elliott, and NASCAR, is if the Most Popular Driver is unable to make the postseason. That would not be good for ratings.