Chase Elliott, Hendrick drivers take stock of season after...

Chase Elliott looks at his performance during the playoffs — in which he didn’t qualify for the championship as a driver — and doesn’t see it playing out much differently than if he had run the seven races he missed during the year.

Elliott sees an end of the season where he had five top-10s in the first six playoff races and believes that probably would have been close to the results he would have had if he had not broken his leg early in the year or served a one-race suspension for his egregious wreck of Denny Hamlin in May.

“If I had run those seven races, we likely would have made the Round of 8 [on the drivers side] like we did on the owners side,” Elliott said the day before the season finale at Phoenix. “I think that is a fair assessment. … But would we just miraculously be winning five races if I had run the seven or however many I missed?

“No. I don’t think that’s real. I don’t think that’s a realistic take.”

Larson and Byron left Phoenix knowing they had a great year but also with the reality that they could see a potential championship slip through their hands.

“It was good,” Larson said following the championship race. “There was a lot left on the table I think, for sure. But I know the areas I need to clean up to be better.

“And if our race cars are as fast as they were this year, I think we can win a lot more next year. I know we just saw the checkered flag, but I’m really excited to get going for next year.”

The only sour part of Byron’s season came in the last two races at Martinsville and Phoenix, where he didn’t feel they were as strong as they needed to be.

“It was a really good season,” Byron said. “We put together a lot of good runs, a lot of good race cars, and we had a lot of shots to win.

“We’ve got to continue to build on that, work on the short tracks a little bit because I felt like the short tracks the last two weeks were tough for us. But we’ll work on that.”