Chase Elliott Blames Himself for Losing Out to 3-Time Supercars Champ Amid Gut-Wrenching Playoff Woes

History was created on Sunday in the Windy City. The 37 stock cars that lined near the Buckingham Fountain, braved torrential rain, unpolished asphalt, and a 90-minute delay. While Saturday’s qualifying and practice session was a nightmare for most drivers, Sunday’s main event proved to be more complacent in nature for most of the drivers, including Chase Elliott.

But the question that bugs the driver and especially his avid fans is whether the most popular will be able to make it to the Playoffs, as he is still below the cut line. He had favorable chances of making it to the podium on Sunday but fell short of a few seconds to the 3x Supercar champion Shane van Gisbergen. And it seems that Elliott himself acknowledges the fact.

Chase Elliott is all praises for the New Zealander counterpart after his victory

The 2023 Cup Series season has turned out to be the most tumultuous one for the golden boy of NASCAR. Earlier it was a broken tibia that has cast a dark cloud on his potential to drive. However, after returning to the tracks, Chase Elliott is yet to bring in podium finishes to his name. Adding to the woes, he is yet to make it to the Playoffs.

Saturday’s qualifying turned out to be heartbreaking for Chase Elliott as he failed to gauge his entry at Turn 7. This eventually led him to the clip-in inside of Turn 7 with a hard impact that completely destroyed his Chevrolet. Owing to a bad qualifying, the driver started at the back of the track for Sunday but steadily gained his track position. And in no time he found himself within the top-3.

But it was van Gisbergen who dueled with the driver and took the winner’s trophy with him. Elliott finished third and was perhaps not satisfied with the results as he revealed to Sirius XM. He revealed, “Course was fine and was a lot of fun. I just felt like I needed to do a better job throughout the weekend, obviously, I crashed, I don’t know how many times this weekend.”

“I was off the pace early, had just got where I felt like I was making comfortable lap time there, and qualifying, and obviously, I crashed. Anytime you go to the backup car and start the race, it’s a bit of a tough spot. We were certainly gifted an opportunity in from there, and once they changed the distance so, that wasn’t necessarily realistic but we were able to keep pace with some guys that were up ahead in the front there once we did.”

“Proud of the fight, proud of the effort, and thanks to Shane, and everybody at Trackhouse. That was a clinic. We’re gonna have to be better to run with that boy because he was pretty impressive,” Elliott asserted.

Watch this Story: Heartbroken Chase Elliott Admits Defeat Ahead of the Chicago Street Race 

The HMS star driver discloses his uncertainty about making it to the Playoffs

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Even though the 2020 Cup Series champion overcame crashes on both days at Chicago and finished at a respectable position of 3rd, the driver is surely not happy with his position, as the Playoff berth seems like a far-fetched dream now. In the post-race interview, the driver revealed to the press,

“For me personally, I’ve just appreciated everybody digging in and putting this car together. I hate I put them in that spot, to begin with, and then crashed again today, and got super behind, and obviously, we were one of the beneficiaries of the race distance having to be shortened because it was going to be dark.

“So we went from not being in our window to me crashing that second time and us being on pit road and fixing it to fueling up one more time and getting us enough fuel to get to the end,” Elliott added.

With just a handful of races left in the regular season, will Elliott snatch a victory or will the fans will the most popular driver of the grid in the playoff season? Only time holds the key to these answers.

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