“I am glad he is the one making the calls”: Ross Chastain gets real about his ‘bad decisions’ after Atlanta fallout

Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain had a decent outing at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday, finishing the race in eighth after a disappointing qualifying result a day before. The 32-year-old gave credit to his crew chief, Phil Surgen, for making the right calls for his No. 1 Moose Fraternity Chevy during the race and said that he's glad to have him as his crew chief.

Ross Chastain qualified 33rd on the grid for the Ambetter Health 400 with a lap time of 31.429 seconds and a top speed of 176.398 mph. This was a staggering half a second down on the pole lap time posted by Ryan Blaney and the speed was also down by 3mph.

While Chastain made steady progress through the first two stages, he suddenly found himself at the top of the field in the early parts of the final stage. This was thanks to a crucial call made by his crew chief as he later mentioned.

"To qualify 33rd and drive through the field – I made some bad decisions throughout the race. The car was good enough in traffic to keep cycling forward. Great call by Phil Surgen (crew chief) there at the beginning of the final stage to come and get four tires. I was definitely second-guessing that in the moment, but it was definitely the right call. So I am glad he is the one making the calls on the No. 1 Moose Chevrolet," Ross Chastain was quoted as saying by NBC Sports.

The 32-year-old found himself in third place as the green flag dropped for Stage 3 on lap 169 and led the race for the first time on lap 170. He kept himself in victory contention through to the end of the race. When a caution came out with three laps to go due to Austin Cindric and William Byron crashing out of the race, Ross Chastain was in second place behind Kyle Larson.

He held second position behind Larson at the initial overtime restart, but a late-race incident triggered by Josh Berry resulted in a caution. NASCAR subsequently declared Christopher Bell the race winner, while Ross Chastain had slipped to eighth place. Despite this, he secured 29 points from the race.

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Ross Chastain had a serious chat with Carson Hocevar

After the race, Ross Chastain was seen having a serious conversation with Carson Hocevar that ended with the two shaking hands. This moment was shared on social media by Matt Weaver.

With Byron and Cindric crashing out late, the possibility of a three-wide finish in overtime seemed likely. Hocevar, who was running near the front on the restart, made several aggressive moves to gain positions.

This is when Kyle Larson overtook Chastain from the outside, and the No. 1 Chevy lost multiple spots due to Hocevar moving to the middle and breaking the draft for Chastain. It is likely that Chastain's conversation with Hocevar was related to this situation.

However, when questioned about their exchange, Chastain declined to elaborate, suggesting that he did not receive the response he was hoping for.

“No sir,” he said in response to Alan Cavanna’s query.

Chastain will look to improve his qualifying form in the upcoming Echopark Texas Grand Prix at COTA, the first Road Course event of the season.