Kyle Petty breaks down Chase Elliott's 'uncharacteristic' difficulties at Watkins Glen

NASCAR driver turned NBC Sports analyst Kyle Petty was more than disappointed with Chase Elliott’s performance at Watkins Glen.

It’s clear as day that the former NASCAR champion needs a victory to get into the playoffs. Many believed it could come at Watkins Glen, due to Elliott’s immense talent on the road courses. However, Petty believes Elliott and his team really screwed the pooch on Sunday.

According to Petty, it was an “uncharacteristic” performance out of the No. 9 team, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“Chase Elliott’s last shot? We’ve got Daytona, but it might’ve been his last legit shot to control his own destiny,” started Petty. “And we go back to (Sunday), and it was just a series of errors. If we go to Saturday, even Chase Elliott made the comment, I think that’s the biggest story coming out of Watkins Glen, made the comment, ‘I messed up on Saturday qualifying. Put us in a hole at fifteenth. Anytime we run well at a road course, we qualify well on Saturday.’ So they lost on Saturday, which meant they were in a bind on Sunday. (

“Crew Chief) Alan [Gustafson] employed a great strategy. He took him from fifteenth, to sixth or seventh, by pitting early on Sunday. But then the way the race played out, and the way and the speed the car had, they had to stretch their fuel mileage. Was it miscommunication, miscalculation? I don’t know. Uncharacteristic, is what it was.”

Of course, the biggest mistake of the race was Elliott running out of fuel in the middle of it, which nobody would’ve predicted would be the No. 9 team’s downfall on Sunday.

“This team made a mistake, and ran Chase out of fuel, and when he was out of fuel on the backstretch, his day was over. There was nothing anyone could do,” said Petty. “I think we heard it in Alan’s voice, we heard it in Chase’s voice, we saw it in their posture on the pit box. They knew that they had put themselves in a bind.

“To go into Daytona, with a must-win situation, that’s a catastrophe for a team like this.”

Chase Elliott is supposed to be a championship contender year-in and year-out. He’s had a hellacious 2023, and now it’s left to Daytona, where he needs a victory, or he’ll be going home.

Saturday night will truly be a crapshoot, and maybe Elliott gets lucky, but the mere fact that he’s in this situation is a disappointment to Kyle Petty, and many NASCAR fans as a whole.