NASCAR Cup Series
Chase Media Day
Team Chevy Driver Quotes
September 2, 2026
Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase Media Day Quotes
Inaudible…
“Yeah, I mean, good performance was rewarded. You had to be good for all ten weeks. You know, I think it’s more in line with that kind of traditional year-long format. It’s not, obviously, but it is more in line with that. Ten weeks is a long time, you know, and things can change quick. There are examples of all of those things in a lot of those different scenarios. I look at, certainly, the dominance of Jimmie (Johnson) from 2006 to 2010. They just executed at a high level. They went to tracks where they were just far superior at and were able to piece together 10 really good weeks. But each one of those years were a little different. You know, they had battles right down to the wire some years. They had battles some years that were pretty well done come Homestead. So there was a little bit of everything.
You look at the year that Tony (Stewart) won in 2011, if I’m not mistaken. He ran like a pile for the majority of the year. He had a couple good races right there at the end and started to get things going in the right direction. I think he won Chicago, if I’m not mistaken, the first week. And then, he ended up winning five of the 10 races. Who had him picked to win it that year? So, again, I remember them all very well.”
How important is it to get off to a good start? You got those three tracks that are pretty different…
“Yeah, I think it is really important to get off to a good start, if you can. For sure, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. You know, I think through those years of watching it from the outside, it seemed like a guy that was a true contender could probably have a bad week, maybe two, and maybe climb his way out of it. But the more bad weeks you have, you’re going to have to be pretty darn good to make up for it.
So, yeah, if you have a slip-up this weekend, you better be able to win. You better have the ability to win and do it often to climb out of a bad race or two.”
Inaudible…
“No, I mean, really all four of our crew chief and driver pairings have been doing it for a little while, at least. Fortunately, we have some experience of our own to look at. It is great to be able to lean on those guys that have that type of success, and certainly, I think the door is always open in that regard. But I do think we all are a little different in our own ways and, you know, might go about it a little differently.
But I think for us this year, if I was going to touch on anything being a little different, is just that obviously the year hasn’t gone like we wanted it to go from a company standpoint, but no one’s discouraged by that. No one’s not ready to go. No one’s not going to turn up every last thing we can turn up from a mentality standpoint, from a prep standpoint, just all the little things that are in our control. We’re going to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward, and wherever that takes us, it takes us. And I think for us, we just really don’t have a lot to lose right now with the way we’ve been running, you know, over the last few months. There’s nothing to defend. There’s nothing to prove. We just need to go and be our best selves, do what we know how to do best and just put our best foot forward. Wherever that takes us, it takes us, and I think we’ll all be better for it somehow, some way, as this thing progresses along.”
Talk about the intensity of the postseason…
“I think for us it’s just we’ve all been doing it long enough. We understand, you know, kind of the ups and downs of the sport, and this thing definitely goes in waves and goes in cycles. Hopefully, we can just get some base hits; get some base hits somewhere and start somewhere, start building some good momentum. You know, I thought that we were going to – I forget. It’s been a month or two back. You know, we would have one good run. I’m like, okay, maybe this will get the train back on the tracks. And then, you’d have two more bad weeks. And then, you might have another mediocre run and you’re like, all right, let’s build a little momentum off of this. And then, you’ll have another really bad week.
We went to Richmond and had a really solid top-five night. You know, nothing crazy happened, just had a good night. And then go to – I don’t even know where we went after that, but it went really bad. You’re just trying to put those pieces of the puzzle together. But in all of that, it’s not like you’re not preparing. It’s not like you’re not looking and trying to uncover every stone that you can to find some performance, myself included within our team, all of the above.
So, you know, that part has not stopped, and it’s not going to stop, no matter what the results are until somebody tells me to, at least. We just keep our heads down and keep going to work.”
Which postseason format has more pressure?
“I think it depends on where you’re sitting in it, you know? Like, if you went to – I don’t know. I’m just thinking – I haven’t raced under this format, you know? I’ve watched it a lot, but I’ve not raced in it, so I don’t really know. But, I mean, those cutoff weeks could definitely be intense, depending upon where you were on the line. But to me, the vibe I kind of get going into this is it’s just going to be that way the whole time. Like, every week is going to kind of have that sense of urgency to it, which I think is really a good thing. I mean, I know I’ve been vocal about how much I appreciate and I’m glad that they’ve swapped to this. Which, again, I’ll say it again, this is a great thing. For those that don’t believe that, in 20 years, you’re going to look back and be like, man, that was a really good decision. In large and part just because we don’t need to fabricate stuff to make our racing and our story compelling to watch or want to see. It can do that on its own. Are you going to have that every year? No, you’re not. And that’s okay because it makes you appreciate the years that you do have it.”
On winning the Southern 500:
“Yeah, man, I would just love to check that box. It’s one of the — I would say, not that I don’t respect every week, but just the Southern 500, Darlington as a racetrack and the challenge that that is; it just has a lot of my respect. I think that’s a really cool event and just one of those races that you want to check off, if you can. I would love to do that.”
Inaudible…
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t necessarily have that answer right now, but I do know that you’re never as far off as you probably think you are or can think you are at different moments. I think our performance early in the year is really a good reminder of that, right? Like, you know, we had a great start, I thought, to the season. We had a lot of performance in the opening month, month-and-a-half. You know, we were super pumped about that and just excited that we were getting the season started off that way. We kind of had a summer stretch that we didn’t want to have to see. But we did, and we’ve seen both sides of the coin.
So, again, as bad as things may be or as bad as you can run some days, a lot of the time, you’re just not as far off as you think. You just have to start stacking some of those good days; the feels and the things that you’ve encountered behind the wheel or with setups and piece the good stuff together and start eliminating the bad. That can be hard to do sometimes, but I think we’ve made some progress. We just have to keep chipping away.
Man, listen, we’ve got our heads down. We’re digging. We’re working really, really hard, and fine-tuning everything that we can possibly do. I have a lot of confidence in our team to be able to perform at our best when it’s required the most. I think that we certainly enjoy this time of year a lot individually, and we’re just excited to give it a go and we’ll see where it takes us.”
Inaudible…
“I mean, yes. Like are there moments where just something didn’t work out in your favor? Sure, yes. I can name a lot of them. You know, Daytona last weekend, right? Like you go to one lane and right when you get into a lane that you thought was fixing to move forward, somebody bobbles and the whole lane checks up, it falls apart and now your move is now trash. Like that would be bad luck, I guess.
But I think, on the flip side of that, I look at other situations where you get involved in a crash or I’m trying to think back — like Indy, you can look at the result and be like, oh, you know, got in a crash, bad luck. Well, no, that was my fault, right? I messed up and we were running like a bucket. You’re reaching and you’re trying to get more than what’s there. You start stacking those things against yourself, and when you really sit back and look in the mirror at the end of the day, you’re like, well, there’s nobody to blame but me. You know, I had us in that spot. I was trying to do more than I needed to be doing and got a bad result from it.
So I think there’s definitely examples of both. But I think in most cases, I think you create a lot of it in motorsports. If you’re doing your job, you are eventually going to be rewarded for running well and putting yourself in good positions more often. That makes those bad luck moments talked about less, I guess.”
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