While the recent Cup Series race can be seen as a success for most of the Trackhouse Racing team, it was a different story for the #1 car driven by Ross Chastain. Chastain sealed his place in the playoffs earlier in the season with a win at Nashville Superspeedway. That was undoubtedly the highest point of his season, as the rest of it has been pretty ordinary. He has finished in the top 10 only nine times so far this season and his Indianapolis performance was also not anything memorable. Chastain finished in 17th place, narrowly edging out Bubba Wallace and earning 20 points for himself.

The Florida-born motorsport athlete had his best season in NASCAR last year, which saw him finish second in the Cup Series championship. However, there has been a drop-off this season, and with the playoffs right around the corner, it is becoming a cause for concern both for himself and the team. On an episode of the NASCAR on NBC podcast, former driver Jeff Burton said that while Daniel Suarez and Shane Van Gisbergen delivered good performances, Chastain was just not fast enough.

Ross Chastain Was Not as Fast as Part-Timer Teammate

Speaking about Trackhouse Racing’s performance, Jeff Burton said that Daniel Suarez was faster than SVG throughout the weekend but it was still impressive for the Kiwi to finish in 10th place. However, Ross Chastain was found no way near.

“I was very curious at Indy to see what the regulars were going to do. And, I don’t think you can separate but Daniel Suarez is a good road racer, we know that but he was faster than SVG all weekend. He was faster. But Chastain was not faster,” the former race car driver said.

Daniel Suarez capped off a fantastic weekend with a top-three finish. He found himself in pole position at the end of qualifying. Sadly, he couldn’t convert that into a win.

Burton then said that SVG did a good job to finish in 10th place and that he was impressed with the performance of the regular drivers at Indianapolis.

“So, he was more on equal ground because of the speedway, of experience that the cup guys had and he ran well. Look, he finished top ten. He finished top ten. He did a really good job but it did show all of us that our guys are really good,” he added.

SVG has been highly impressive ever since he took the world by storm by winning his debut Cup Series race in Chicago. While his performance at Indianapolis wasn’t as impressive, a 10th-place finish is impressive for his second NASCAR race.

Ahead of the Indianapolis race, the Kiwi spoke to RACER’s Marshall Pruett and reminisced his journey around the world in motorsports leading up to his participation in NASCAR.

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Pruett and SVG have known each other for quite a while, as the former recalled the Kiwi’s journey in motorsport.

“You were the next guy, you were showing yourself, you were on the way. Hadn’t won a race yet, but you got that solved and started adding more […] Even back then when we spoke, you said I’d love to try some of this, ‘I’d love to come to America.’ How’s the stream working out mate,” he said to SVG.

“I did a lot of DT stuff in Europe. GT here, and yeah, now to come and try NASCAR and seeing what Project91 was doing last year, to come and be part of it. And then now, it’s leading to more. Very, very cool,” SVG said about his journey around the world in motorsport.

The Chicago race winner might have only been in two NASCAR races but has already garnered a lot of respect from fans. It will be exciting to see how he fares in the sport as a full-time driver if he makes the jump from Supercars next season.

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