“I’ve Been Humbled a Lot”- Chase Elliott Shockingly Rules Out 7-Race Miss as He Reveals HMS’ Disappointment’s Real Culprit

2023 hasn’t been the season NASCAR’s golden boy, Chase Elliott, or his fans thought it would be. While a seven-race hiatus put the Hendrick Motorsports driver on the backfoot, as the points deficit built on. This led to the 2020 champion missing the playoffs for the first time ever in the Cup Series.

For ardent Elliott fans, it was a reversal in fortunes. It was one they never saw coming since he has been incredibly consistent in the past seven years. Reflecting on the disastrous 2023 season, Elliott got brutally honest, revealing the real culprit that ruined his title hopes.

Chase Elliott gets real about his 2023 season as the HMS ace takes lessons from his past season

A wise man learns from his mistakes and will be wary of not repeating them in the future. Rick Hendrick‘s superstar seems to be a wise one as the driver recently shared the malefactor that ruined his title aspirations. From fans’ standpoint, Elliott’s seven-race break might be the sole factor that got the driver in the rut in the first place. But the driver thinks that that wasn’t all.

The driver got an early setback missing six races in a row owing to an untimely accident that broke his left tibia. Elliott believes it wasn’t just the unfortunate accident that got him in the precarious position. Speaking to the media ahead of his final run in Phoenix, he was asked, “Has it been a little bit humbling not to be the guy that is upfront every week?” Elliott said, “I’ve been humbled a lot in my career so, no, I don’t think that’s necessarily a new lesson. I knew this stuff was hard long before now I guess.” 

The #9 driver then went on to uncover the real problem, saying, “I think the things that we started struggling with last year continued on to this year and it was really a reflection of where we left off the season last year unfortunately, we just never, you know, never figured some of the things out and got better so.”

He further added, “So yeah, I think it’s certainly an easy thing to point out. ‘Oh, you missed seven races, that ruined your year.’ I don’t buy that like you know. Yes, we would’ve made the driver’s points if I had just you know run in those events more than likely. But you know again, I don’t think that would’ve just fixed our problems and we would’ve been a contender like we want to be because of that.” But the troubles didn’t end there for Hendrick Motorsports.

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While an unfortunate injury and a race suspension got the driver in dire straits as the season went on, missing the driver playoff, the #9 team was locked in for the owner’s title until things went wrong in the round of 8. The HMS #9 team picked up the last spot at 16th, edging out 23XI Racing‘s #23 team of Bubba Wallace.

A series of impressive finishes in the first playoff round got the #9 into the next round of 12. Elliott repeated his success in the next round, finishing decently as he took the team to the round of 8. Sadly, this was the peak and he could place no higher than 15th. This eventually knocked the #9 team out of contention. Chase Elliott will now be looking for some Phoenix consolation before starting with a clean slate for 2024.

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