Chase Elliott says he's 'not good' on Chicago Street Course after practice

After a rough practice session, Chase Elliott was not happy with his own performance and couldn’t even talk about what his car needed. The 2020 NASCAR champion needs a win to make the playoffs and this race was seen as an opportunity for him. With seven road course wins to his name, it is a shock how poorly Elliott has performed early on.

While there is time to figure things out, there isn’t a lot of time. Chase Elliott needs things to go well. At the very least, he needs to pick up points in Chicago if he wants to maybe sneak into the postseason. Right now, things aren’t going well.

Elliott was open and honest about his struggles. He told MRN, according to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic that he was “not good.”

“I am not good, so just trying to figure it out. … I’m not even close enough to start complaining (about the car),” Chase Elliott said.

Chase Elliott to MRN: "I am not good, so just trying to figure it out. … I'm not even close enough to start complaining (about the car)."

— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) July 1, 2023

When the practice session was over, Chase Elliott was P20. That is not going to cut it if Elliott wants another top-5 finish or potentially a win. While the No. 9 struggled, teammate Kyle Larson was P6 in the practice session. William Byron was P14 overall when the 50 minutes were over.

As champions of the sport tried to figure out the track, Shane van Gisbergen shot to the top of the field and finished P1 in his first-ever NASCAR start.

Chase Elliott wrecks during qualifying

Given his experience on road courses and the expectations before the race, it is safe to say Chase Elliott is lagging behind. He needs to be in that top-10 in qualifying or things will be very difficult for him and his team moving forward to the Grant Park 220 on Sunday.

The thing is, Elliott was impressed with how well the course ran during Xfinity Series practice and qualifying. However, it didn’t translate to a good run in practice. He will be trying to figure it all out before he hits the track for qualifying. Maybe it is nerves, maybe he just isn’t adapting to the course very well.

During qualifying, things didn’t go much better for Chase Elliott. The Hendrick Motorsports driver found himself hitting the Turn 8 wall much like Sheldon Creed did during Xfinity qualifying. He will go to a backup car as well as Kevin Harvick who also wrecked in the session.

Meanwhile, we’ve gotten some great results from van Gisbergen and even Jenson Button. Of course, Button is the 2009 F1 champion and raced earlier this year at COTA. He was also one of the three drivers for the Garage 56 Le Mans team.

Button was P3 in practice. So, some drivers are figuring it out. Will Chase Elliott be able to put it all together before it is too late? Right now he’s just not running well enough to be a factor in this race.