Chase Elliott left ‘waitin’ on a clean day’ following bitter COTA outing

Chase Elliott spoke out on his performance during the Circuit of the Americas on the 2nd of March, 2025. Elliott noted that he had been having bad starts in the 2025 season but seemed content with his top-five finish.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver's outing at the Circuit of the Americas saw him make a great comeback after suffering from an incident involving Ross Chastain. On the very first lap, the 29-year-old who started the race in third position was spun out by contact with Chastain. Even after a troubling start, Elliot finished 4th, marking an impressive comeback in the race.

Chase Elliott shared his reflection on the race and looked forward to the upcoming race at Phoenix Raceway on his X handle (formerly known as Twitter) and captioned the tweet:

"Still waitin’ on a clean day, but we’ll take P4 at COTA. See y’all in PHX"

Christopher Bell secured his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory by winning the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. He passed Kyle Busch with six laps remaining and held off William Byron and Tyler Reddick in a thrilling finish, crossing the line just 0.38 seconds ahead of Byron. This marks Bell's 11th career win and his third on a road course. At 30 years old, he became the first driver since Kevin Harvick in 2018 to achieve two wins in the first three races of the season.

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Chase Elliott sends a message after ‘frustrating’ ordeal with Ross Chastain at COTA

Despite starting the race in the second row, contact from Chastain sent Elliott to the back of the pack with damage to his car. In a post-race interview with FOX reporter Regan Smith, he spoke on the incident involving Ross Chastain, an incident that ruined his chances at a win on the road course. He said:

"I hadn't seen it, you know. So I don't want to, I don't want to comment yet, but just, you know, first lap of the dang race, right? But just frustrating to just fall behind there. Early, we had damage toe knocked out in the back, and Alan and Matt, everybody did a great job fixing it and getting us in a good position, and fell behind there on that restart and was really just playing catch-up." [00:13 onwards]

"So I thought we got our Napa Chevy back in a reasonable place. I mean, who knows? I would like to say I would love to be in the mix, right? Easy thing to say when you have a bad day," he added.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver believed he was playing catch-up throughout the race, trying to bring home the points that would improve his standings in the drivers' championship.