NASCAR CUP SERIES
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
FEBRUARY 11, 2026
Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes:
The format is a little different now. It’s not win-and-in. It’s Daytona so you want to win, right?
“You weren’t win-and-in before either, but nobody listens to me on that. It got you a potential spot, but nonetheless, it doesn’t matter now. It matters but it’s different, for sure.
It’s always fun to come down here. This race, to me, has always kind of been on our schedule –with it being first, and it being such a big event, it’s always kind of felt like it’s on its own island a little bit from the rest of the season. I think that’s OK. It’s a great tradition that we’ve had for a long time to start our season this way. It’s a big way to start it, and I think just the energy level throughout the week is always so high here. I think it makes it a lot of fun. I know I say that a lot, but anytime you come to the racetrack and the fans, and the campgrounds, and friends want to come down — all that stuff is just really cool to be a part of. I think it makes it, not only from a driver’s perspective, but from our team, we feel all that energy. I would have to even imagine for you guys (media), just being a part of the Daytona 500 weekend on Sunday is pretty cool. I never take that for granted.”
Do you feel like you benefit from this format (the final ten), does it play into your hands a little bit?
“I like our chances, for sure. I think that you’re going to have to perform at a really high level for 10 weeks. There will be more room in there for you to have, I don’t want to say a bad day — you might get away with one bad day, but you’re going to have to perform at a really high level. That was the case before, but I like the fact that it gives it time for things to come out in the wash. You know, if you have one bad pit stop, it doesn’t ruin your championship at Phoenix. That was the part that always was difficult from my perspective, whether I was a part of it or if I was watching it, was kind of hard.
Motorsports is just a little different, and I think we’ve we spent an awful lot of time trying to be like everybody else. I’m really proud of leadership of saying, ‘hey look, let’s be us and let’s go do our own thing.’ The Chase format was really unlike anything else in sports, that I could remember at that time, when it came out. Very genuine, very original. I think it fits. It never felt like a playoff to me, and not because my name, but the chase does sound good. It sounds like racing. It sounds like a racing term.
I like it now and I liked it then. Watching that format was the majority of my childhood and the years of me being a fan watching at home. I remember a lot of great battles, and I think you’ll continue to have that with this.”
What does this mean as an event?
“I think the event itself, it’s an honor to be a part of… it truly is. It’s really a big deal. It’s one of the biggest sporting events in the United States, and to say you’ve been a part of it for the past 10-plus years, not a lot of people can say that and I definitely take pride in that. I understand the magnitude of that and that it’s a really special thing to be a part of, so I’ll never take that for granted.
The race itself has not been great for me. We’ve had a couple of opportunities to win I think in ‘17 or ’18, pretty early on in my Cup career, and then came really close to the year that (Michael) McDowell won. I wish I could have just held whoever’s finger was touching that caution light button .5 seconds and we wouldn’t be talking about the same thing right now, but that’s just part of the race.
All you can do in this event is just try and put yourself in a good position to be rolling there at the end and have a shot. The rest of it, you just hope it goes your way. The good news is coming down here with HMS and the men and women that work at our facility, that’s a really nice feeling to roll through those tunnels and know we have a shot to win this thing every time I’ve been here. That feeling this year is no different.”
Do you start to feel pressure, that you’ll become a statistic on TV, that you haven’t won in x number of attempts.
“No, I don’t feel that way. I haven’t won any crown jewels. At the end of the day, we’ve been close to winning more than one of them, but it hasn’t worked out like that. The story that’s being written is being written for a reason and those reasons are probably further than any of us can comprehend. So I think you have to trust in that a little bit; keep your head down, stay working, and if there’s a day and a time for us, then there is. We’ll enjoy that moment if it ever comes. Me thinking about that is not productive to my time of helping us get there, so I don’t really let my mind go there. I’m more just like, what can I do to help achieve the goal for this week, and that starts today in practice. And then, my mind goes to qualifying tonight. Then, I’ll think about the duels and then I’ll start thinking about the race.”
With the new Chevy body, how long into the season do you anticipate getting a gauge of where you are at?
“Phoenix or Vegas. Probably more Vegas, I would say, even than Phoenix, but certainly some at Phoenix. I’m really curious to get there and just see where we’re at. I went through body change, I think ‘17 to ’18, if I’m not mistaken. It wasn’t what we thought it was going to be. We had done a lot of testing throughout the offseason and kind of missed, really. I’ve been on the other end of that, too, where you we had a change and we hit it well. I guess where I’m going with that is until we get in some racing environments, we’ll see. I do think our testing and things have improved with Chevy over the years. We’ve really come together, and we work really well together, so I do have confidence that we’ve been working in the right areas and in the right direction. It’s all very small tweaks. We’re fighting in a really small box of how to improve, be better and not hurt yourself.
Long story short, until we get into some of those real racing environments, I think that the questions can be sometimes hard to answer. Maybe some at the road course, a little bit at COTA, but I’m curious to really get to Vegas and just see you know where we’re at. That’ll be fun, you know, something a little different.”
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