Defending Cup Series champion Chase Elliott is just one away from making it into the Championship 4 and further one race away from defending his title.
With just one race remaining in the Round of 8, only Elliott’s teammate Kyle Larson has booked a spot for the final race of the 2021 season. Elliott with the other six drivers will be competing for the three available spots for the race.
This season has been a good one for Elliott in terms of his overall performance with 23 top-10 finishes, 8 second-place finishes and two wins. However, he didn’t hit the heights that he attained in the playoffs last season.
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Nonetheless, he is just one race away from making it to the Championship 4 race for the consecutive season. And once he gets there, he is as capable as anyone else to get the win.
Speaking to the Republic about his chances to make it into the final four race, Elliott said:
“Well, we just need to go and keep our eyes and head straight and our eyes forward. And I think that for us, we need to go up there and try to push ourselves and try to go compete for a win. It’s a dangerous game to start playing defense and worrying about points and things of that nature. But one thing’s for sure, a win locks you in (the final four), number one. And if you’re up there competing for a win, that’s gonna award you enough points to move on either way. So I think we need to go and be aggressive like I feel like we can be … (have) a really solid race on pit-row strategy. Make sure I’m extracting everything out of the car that I can get. And I think we can go out there and do all those things really well, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Having already won the championship at Phoenix Raceway last season, Elliott will relish the chance to repeat the feat if he makes it to the race.
“There’s obviously — step one is to get there, so you never want to get too far ahead of yourself. But I think that we’re very capable of performing at a high level for two weeks, and I think our team is in a good place to do that.”
Only two weeks of strong performances separate Elliott from his second championship. But well, his teammate Kyle Larson too, of course.