Chase Elliott came into the 2024 season after what was his Cup Career’s worst season so far since debuting in 2015. The 2023 season was the first time the Georgia native failed to make it to the playoffs, remaining winless in the season. Elliott was looking for redemption in 2024 and got it by bagging a win at Texas and making it to the playoffs.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver had a good start to the playoffs, managing four top-10 finishes out of the first 6 playoff races, and progressing to the round of 8. While the 2020 Cup Series champion was eyeing a second title, the recent Las Vegas race made things difficult. Chase Elliott finds himself dead last in the elimination zone after a weekend to forget. However, the #9 is still hopeful!

Chase Elliott opens up on his 2024 championship chances

Here’s what happened in Vegas – Just 10 laps after stage one ended, Elliott and Martin Truex Jr were fighting for the 4th position when Tyler Reddick tried to take the inside line in a three-wide move. Truex Jr drifted on turn 4, catching Elliott off guard as he crashed into Reddick, roping in Brad Keselowski too. All three cars spun onto the infield grass, leading to Reddick’s #45 car flipping. The damage to all three cars was enough to cut their runs short.

The DNFs proved to be detrimental to Reddick and Elliott’s playoff campaigns. The 2024 regular season champion currently sits in the 6th position -30 points below the cutline. And Chase Elliott, who entered the Vegas race -9 points below the cut line, is now last in the top 8 with -53 points. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the HMS driver to point his way in the next two races. However, he is confident that he still has a chance to make it to the final four at Phoenix.

Ahead of the next race at Homestead Miami, Elliott in an interview with CupScene.com said, “Fortunately for us you know we were performing at a high level throughout the event, and to me, that’s the best motivating factor is when you have good performance and you have good pace and you’re in contention.” After starting 18th in the Vegas race, Elliott had climbed to the top 5 in stage 2 before the wreck happened. However, dwelling on the past would do no good, as the #9 is targeting the Homestead Miami race, as they are probably in a must-win situation.

Elliott, confident about Homestead, said, “So I think for us, we’ve just got to keep working in the direction that we were working in this past weekend. I thought we had a good thing going and you know hope that it translates in Homestead (Miami), But like I said I think it’s easy to stay motivated when you know when you have good pace and you feel like you were doing the right thing. And I feel that was what we had going on so we’ll uh try to carry that forward this weekend.”

However, the #9 has never won at the Homestead Maimi track. In fact, in the last race, Elliott finished 15th there.

What are Chase Elliott’s chances in the next two races?

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Despite not winning at the Homestead Miami Speedway so far, Elliott has maintained a good average finish at the track. The HMS driver in 8 races so far has an average finish of 10.4 with two top 5s and three top 10 finishes. The closest the #9 came to a win was in 2020 when he finished second. Elliott has never finished worse than 15th on the track, but that won’t be enough this time. Nothing less than probably a win would do!

Elliott, dwelling on his plans for the next two weekends, said, “Our point situation is… what it is, and we are in a must-win situation for the next two weeks. How we achieve that, if we’re able to go out there and win a race, I would prefer just to go be faster than everyone else and call a good race and execute a good day and that would be how I’d like to go about it.” While the #9 team would be glad to finish the job at Homestead, if not, Martinsville is a better option for Elliot, owing to his past record there.

Elliott finished in third place (P3) in the spring race and he would be looking to better that. However, Martinsville is a short track and Kyle Larson would not make the job easier for his teammate. Larson is a serious threat at Martinsville after his recent short-track dominance in Bristol. However, Elliott has won the race once in 2020, and out of the races that he’s had there, five times he’s finished in the top 3. Overall, the HMS #9 is a strong contender to win the next two races.

What do you think are Elliott’s chances to make it to the Championship 4? If he does, it would be the fourth time in his Cup career. Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.