Ross Chastain says he "lost control of the race" following the yellow flag at Watkins Glen

Ross Chastain has reflected on his Watkins Glen run after rebounding to a fourth-place finish. The Trackhouse Racing driver was the polesitter at Go Bowling! at the Glen, but "lost control of the race" right before the second stage.

The #1 Chevy driver took the green flag as the leader but couldn't keep up with the pace and fell to a 14th-place finish in Stage 1. However, he regained momentum and surged to the front. But disappointment came a couple of laps before Stage 2 ended.

Trackhouse's Daniel Suarez lost control while exiting Turn 6 and his #99 Chevy got stuck in the sand trap. Chastain and Shane van Gisbergen gunned toward the pitlane before the yellow was prompted, but couldn't make it in time and missed it by one turn. Thus, both were out on the track with the former winning Stage 2 while the latter claimed second place.

However, failing to pit before the caution proved costly later. On Lap 57, the lap before Ross Chastain entered the pits, Chris Buescher, with 19 laps fresher compounds, overtook the Trackhouse racing driver and his future teammate, SVG.

Nonetheless, both rebounded and braved through the chaotic final stage. The New Zealander posted a runner-up finish after losing the fierce final lap battle to Buscher, with Chastian rounding in fourth place after leading a race-high 51 laps.

While talking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, the four-time Cup Series race winner outlined how he lost control of the race after his teammate, Suarez crashed.

"Strong effort. We lost control of the race with that caution (Lap 38) coming to the pits to end Stage 2, Shane (van Gisbergen) and I did. From there, we were playing catch up on older tires, and earlier in the race we could hold them off on older tires but once we were in traffic and older tires, we didn't really have enough to go do that. But the two strongest cars were the #16 (SVG) and #1 (Chastain's Chevy), I'm super proud of that," Chastain said.

The P4 at Watkins Glen marked Ross Chastain's fifth top-5 finish of the season.

---

"It's unbelievable": Ross Chastain after bagging his maiden Cup Series pole of the 2024 season

Ross Chastain had a poor season-opener race at the Daytona International Speedway, where he registered a 21st-place finish. However, the following three races saw him bag three consecutive top-10s and a top-5 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. From 28 race weekends, the #1 Chevy driver has collected five top-5s, and ten top-10s, and has led 242 laps.

Though he couldn't clinch the pole before the 28th race weekend at the 2.54-mile road course, he inched close to taking the green flag as the leader. This includes the Kansas Speedway race where Chastain stood second fastest in the qualifying and the Richmond qualifying where he came third.

On one hand, an "abnormal" amount of playoff drivers 'qualified bad', while on the other, Ross Chastain bagged the fastest time of 72.13 seconds. He stood 0.134 seconds faster than the second-placed driver, Martin Truex Jr., and marked his second career pole. Chastain's first was at Nashville in 2023, which was Trackhouse's first pole as well. Reflecting on his polesitter run via NASCAR on NBC on X, Chastain said:

“It wasn’t any one thing. It was so many years of trying to learn how to do this. For a Busch Light Chevy, this is just a career moment, lifetime achievement to go faster than everybody in the Cup Series. It’s unbelievable for Trackhouse and myself,” Chastain said (0:25).

While Chastain isn't in the championship fight, Daniel Suarez is placed 5th in the playoffs with a 36-point cushion heading into Bristol.