Chase Elliott expects 'a really tough' Round of 8 heading into Las Vegas

Chase Elliott headed to the Round of 12 elimination race as the favorite driver after locking his spot in the semi-final round with last weekend’s win at Talladega Superspeedway.

After an on-track incident on Sunday during the final two restarts pushed Elliott out of the lead when the checkered flag flew two laps later at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he crossed the finish line in 20th place. He led the race at a high of 30 out of 112 laps.

During the post-race interview, Chase Elliott spoke about the late-race chaos with AJ Allmendinger and will look ahead to a really tough opening race in the Round of 8 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next week. He admitted that the 1.5-mile-long track posed a challenge for him during a previous trip earlier this season.

Elliott said:

“We’ll try again next week. I think it’s going to be a really tough round. Vegas was a struggle for us in the spring. Homestead, we’ve just been really hit-or-miss there. We did have a test there a couple weeks ago, so hopefully we’ve learned from that. Martinsville, it’s just going to be about how you qualify because I don’t see anybody passing there. We’ll see how it goes. Try to bring our A-game. It would have been nice to have some more points from today, but we didn’t and we’ll try again out in Las Vegas.”

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Chase Elliott spoke about the contact with AJ Allmendinger

Chase Elliott muscled out of the lead after making contact with AJ Allmendinger in Turn 1 on a late restart with six laps to go. After the Lap 107 restart in Turn 6, Tyler Reddick made contact with Elliott, sending his #9 car through the grass. Both drivers were running for second place.

Speaking about the late-race chaos with AJ Allmendinger, Elliott said:

“I thought I had a pretty good launch (on the second-to-last restart) and thought I got through (turns) 1 and 2 good. I thought I gave AJ (Allmendinger) enough room through one and two to not run into the fence. I don’t know if he just got loose, overdrove Turn 3 or whatever, but I ended up on the outside. Whatever the reason, he ran wide and I ended up the track in a super compromised situation.”

Chase Elliott returns to the top of the playoff standings with a 20-points advantage over second place and a 31-point gap to the cutline heading into the Round of 8. Catch Elliott next week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the first race of the Round of 8.