NASCAR CUP SERIES
BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
APRIL 11, 2026
Chase Elliott, driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
Have you given any thought about, realistically, where you and the team would need to be seeded when the Chase starts to have a shot at the championship? There’s some drivers and teams, based off of modeling from NASCAR, who are thinking maybe top-five or top-three to have a realistic shot at the championship. Have you given any thought to where you might have to be at the end of the regular season?
“I have not. I mean, I think it’s pretty simple, really. You need to be able to win on almost a weekly basis. You need to be leading laps, winning races and doing all the things that champions do. That’s pretty simple to me. I don’t know what that gets you from a numbers standpoint, but if you’re not – I mean, let’s be real, if you’re not leading laps, if you’re not winning races and you’re not putting yourself in those positions very often, you’re not going to back into it, right? I don’t know what that gets you, but probably you’re going to be pretty high up in the points if you’re doing those things, but I look at it a little different. I’m not sure what the number is on that, though.”
You said going into Martinsville that the season has just kind of been up and down. You had a pretty strong up to head into the off week. What does that do for the No. 9 team, momentum-wise, to set up now as you prepare for a long stretch into the summer?
“Yeah, I mean, kind of more ups and downs. Fortunately, the last one was an up. But I think it’s also important to recognize that, man, there’s an awful lot of racing left. Yeah, I think for us, it’s not like, okay, we’ve got to win and pressure’s off. Like, that’s not how I’ve looked at it. I’ve looked at it with, honestly, just some excitement from the standpoint of, man, we have a longer runway to build on a win, you know? I think for us, we’ve gotten to the last 10 or 15 weeks of the year before and really had to perform just at an extreme level and kind of catch up, in some regards. Like, even last year, we got ourselves to the playoffs and we didn’t have the wins, the playoff points and all the things banked up… which I know the system’s different and I get all that, but the concept is very much the same. We still need to perform well throughout the first 26 weeks, and I think when you are able to bank a win early, you kind of have a little bit of a longer runway to continue to put good runs together, stack more points and get going on the right foot.
So I hope that’s the case for us. Obviously, I think we still have a lot to learn. I think I still have a lot to learn. I think we have areas that we’re still deficient in. I think that there have been some areas that have been positive for us, as well, and hopefully we can build on those and try to reduce some of the deficient areas that I feel like we’ve had throughout the course of the year to this point. But, yeah, just excited to have a little bit of a longer runway, and hopefully we can do something with it.”
With the increased horsepower tomorrow, plus new tire codes, do you have an idea yet of what will maybe have the biggest impact on the race and how it plays out?
“I don’t yet. We haven’t been on track, and I think that that’s going to probably be the best answer to some of those questions. Justin (Allgaier) did the test for the Chevy camp. I’m sure all three manufacturers had a car at that test. But certainly, listening to Justin; leaning on some of his feedback and some of his opinions to this point because that’s all we have to go off of or all I have to go off of. So I’ve done some of that. I think he does a good job of analyzing some of those details, so hopefully all that stuff tracks and gets us started in a closer spot than it would otherwise. I appreciate him and time and effort he put in to help Team Chevy get started this weekend, and hopefully it gets us in a good spot.”
I spoke to Larry McReynolds this morning and I asked him about what one of the biggest surprises is so far in NASCAR season. He said early in the interview, he said Chevy’s lack of performance. But then he pivoted off that and said that he believes that Chevy is spring boarded with your win. He says, I believe they found it and I think that they’re really going to take off from here. Do you agree with that? Are you guys at where you want to be, or have you guys found it and you guys are going to really be something to be reckoned with over the next few months and the rest of the season?
“I hope so. I mean, I think that for us, as a manufacturer, obviously any change is a big change nowadays with just how tight everything is. I think in a lot of cases, that takes a little bit of time to iron out. I think that for us, we truthfully have just now gotten through all the different track styles that we’re going to see throughout the course of the season. That has just recently been accomplished, right? And I think at that point, and I told you guys before we did all that, that I’d like to get to all the different tracks and just kind of see where we’re at. So now that we have some of those answers, I think we can start to kind of summarize and have a better understanding of the direction we need to go; what areas of those tracks were positives, which ones were negative, how far off we are at the bad ones, and how much more room we have to improve at some of the ones that had high spots.
Phoenix, certainly, was a down for us. I thought that was a step in the wrong direction; an area that we need to be better in, for sure. I thought Darlington was probably much of the same. I thought Las Vegas was very strong. Martinsville was very similar to what it was last fall. So, you know, there’s a lot of data points in all that. But I think that the season is still very young, and I think we have some smart people that are in our corner to help iron it all out.
I don’t think one good run or one win just fixes all your problems. I think it comes from hard work, putting all our resources together and kind of pulling in the same direction. We’re in the process of doing that, but I don’t think the results of Martinsville are just going to magically fix everything that we know we need to be better at.”
Going back to Martinsville for a minute, you mentioned how it was very nice and it was very cool to win so early because you hadn’t done that before. Obviously, winning early in the old format with the playoffs was different, and winning early now is also different because you can change your goals and figure out how you want to go from here. How does winning at this juncture of the season in this format compare to when you won in the regular season before, or do they?
“Yeah, it’s definitely different, I guess, from a points standpoint. But when I say those things, I really don’t even care about all that. It’s very simple for me. I just want to be a driver in a team that is competitive and has opportunities to win every week. There’s a very small group, in my view, of drivers and teams in this garage that have opportunities to win legitimately every single weekend, and it is my goal and our team’s goal as a whole to put ourselves in that group. And to me, that’s all we can ask for. It’s very hard to do, but it’s also very simple at the same time because I think if you’re doing that, you know, are you going to win every week? No. It doesn’t work that way. If you’re doing that, you’re giving yourself opportunities to win. You’re going to get your turn, and you’re going to make your turn more often than others if you’re doing those things. I think that it’s just about putting yourself in a good position and performing at a high level.
So, you know, by me saying, hey, I’m excited that we have a win early, it’s like, man, this is nice. I feel like we just have a nice foundation of a longer runway to build on this and trying to be one of those teams, and that’s really all I’m after because. Like I said earlier, I don’t know what the number is, what the cutoff is to having a shot to win, but I know if we’re doing those things and running like those few drivers and teams do, then we’re going to have a shot with wherever that stacks you in the seed thing. I don’t know, but it’s really that simple for me, and that’s all I want to accomplish.”
We were in here earlier today with Alex Bowman and Jeff Andrews, and it was very, very easy to see how much Andrews believes in Bowman, who has had so many things go on. What does it mean to you to have Alex come back, given all of the things he has gone through to be a racecar driver, but second of all, the support of Hendrick Motorsports that when you’re down, no matter what anyone says, they are right there supporting you.
“First off, super happy to have Alex back. I know that you guys don’t work with him on a weekly basis, but he’s been a great teammate to me. He’s certainly a great competitor and a very talented racecar driver, as well. He’s been a great teammate to have at HMS. Certainly, I hate that the things he’s had to endure throughout the course of his career. A lot of times, it seems unfair, right? But I think that he has handled it with a lot of class. And, man, the work he’s put in to get back and to get back this fast and also be willing to do that, that takes a lot of commitment and a lot of courage, too, from his perspective from what he went through at COTA. So, I’m happy to have him back. I hope they have a great weekend. I want to see him just be healthy and have a good, strong rest of the year, wherever that takes him.
But, yeah, that’s really the biggest thing from my standpoint. I think that, speaking for Jeff Andrews, as you were talking about, we’re very fortunate at HMS to have a lot of just supportive figures and people that do a great job of lifting other teammates up. I would put Andrews at towards the very top of that list of just being a guy that you can always go to and have a conversation with; always feel like your opinion is valued and that he’s hearing you out. You can always count on having support from him in your corner, regardless of what’s going on, and he always makes that very evident. I’ve always had a ton of respect for him for that. Glad to hear he offers that in here, as well, for you guys to see, and also, to kind of help Alex and push him through the process, as well.”
You were talking about the consistency in the organization and to have somebody like Alex that did the wheel force testing and sim testing for Hendrick. How will that help take you guys to the next level, just knowing what his background is from that standpoint?
“Yeah, I mean, I think from Alex’s standpoint, he’s put in a lot of time, whether it be driving the sim or whatever it was. I think the big thing with him is that he’s very in tune with how our process works and also very knowledgeable, as well. He’s been at the forefront of a lot of different development throughout the course of time that I’ve been a part of HMS. Even before he was driving the No. 48, I know he filled in for Dale Jr. a couple times back in the day. Obviously, he did a great job with all that. But he’s been very, very in tune and very involved. He’s been a huge asset for all of us. But aside from all that, like just happy to have him back. I enjoy racing with him. He always races me with a lot of respect. I feel like he’s one of those guys that you can race really hard on track and trust and all those things, which I think makes it a lot of fun from a competitor’s standpoint. You can get out and be able to talk about it and digest the weekend. I appreciate his professionalism throughout this whole process and hope that he can have a healthy rest of the year.”
When Alex had a concussion, he came back for the last race of the year and we were all like, why do you do that? And here we’re like, why are you coming back to this place when you were suffering from vertigo? What is it about him do you think that makes him do some of these things that we would say, well, logically maybe you should wait or hold off?
“I don’t know. I mean, that’s not really for me. I’m not sure. You know, from the outside looking in, I would say because he’s a competitor. He loves to race and that’s probably all he’s done his whole life, much like the rest of us. So I would have to imagine that him getting back to doing something that he loves is important to him. But I’m not him. I don’t know that 100 percent, but that would be my thought.”
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