"We would've made the Round of 8": Chase Elliott dismisses early season sabbatical as a factor for slump in performance

Chase Elliott will be capping off his worst NASCAR Cup Series campaign in 2023, having failed to qualify for the playoffs for the first time in his career.

One of the main factors contributing to Elliott's lackluster season was his early season sabbatical. He missed six races due to a leg injury and was forced to miss another event after being suspended by NASCAR.

These absences begged the question of Chase Elliott's potential result. Many have been wondering where the #9 Chevy driver could have finished in the standings if he had started every race.

The 2020 Cup Series champion himself cleared the air as he speculated that he could have made it into the Round of 8, given his #9 Hendrick Motorsports team made it to the penultimate round in the owner's standings.

"Missing the seven races..., If I had run those seven races we would have likely made the Round of 8 like we did in the owner's side. I think that's a fair assessment," he said to Fox Sports

Elliott also ruled out the possibility of winning multiple races if he was racing early in the season when HMS was dominating every weekend.

"Just having run all the races, I would feel good about saying that but would we just miraculously be winning five races, if had run the seven races or how many that I missed? No, I don't think that's a realistic take."

Even after Elliott returned from his hiatus, there were plenty of mistakes and setbacks that prevented him from scaling the deficit to make the playoffs on points. He is hence relegated to take his worst finish in drivers' standings in his Cup Series career.

Chase Elliott made a brutal assessment about his 2023 campaign, as he and his team haven't operated at the high standards they had previously set for themselves.

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Chase Elliott answers if he has been "humbled" by his 2023 campaign

NASCAR's poster boy Chase Elliott has been a front-runner for much of his career. He managed to qualify for the playoffs in his rookie campaign and has done so every year until 2023.

With his current season being far off his usual season standards, Elliott was asked if he was "humbled by not running up front every week", to which he replied:

"I’ve been humbled a lot in my career so, no, I don’t think that’s necessarily a new lesson. I knew this stuff was hard long before now I guess," he said via Frontstretch.

The #9 HMS driver later explained the team's downfall this season, saying that they were bugged by recurring issues from their 2022 campaign.

"I think the things that we started struggling with last year continued on to this year and it was really a reflection of where we left off the season last year unfortunately, we just never, you know, never figured some of the things out and got better so," he added.

The season finale at Phoenix provides the final opportunity for Chase Elliott to win his first race of the 2023 season.