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Chase Elliott’s confidence could have slumped. His team could have fractured. He’s seen it happen to other drivers.
The 28-year-old never worried about that, though, after enduring the worst year of his NASCAR Cup Series career in 2023. Those issues never popped up.
“I feel like our team is in a good place,” Elliott said earlier this week during Daytona 500 Media Day. “When you have a year like last year, it is really easy for a team to blow up from the inside. Like, really easy. You don’t know how easy. And when I look at just where our team is at mentally and just our drive and our will and our willingness to fight and not quit, I think it is at an all-time high, to be honest.”
Elliott broke his leg in a snowboarding accident last March and missed six races. He sat out another after NASCAR suspended him for intentionally wrecking Denny Hamlin at the Coca-Cola 600. And when he did run, the results he wanted didn’t follow. He has not won in 34 tries since taking the checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway in October of 2022.
He also missed the playoffs for the first time. He placed 17th — his first time not making the final four since 2019.
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Elliott strung together seven top-10 finishes in nine races as the regular season ended and postseason began, but it wasn’t enough to dig out of the early hole.
Elliott still maintained his celebrity status last summer. Fans voted the second-generation star as the sport’s most popular driver for the sixth consecutive season.
Now, he enters his ninth Cup Series campaign, which have all come with Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. It kicks off Sunday with the Daytona 500, a race none of its drivers have claimed since Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2014.
Elliott flirted with a victory at NASCAR’s most famous track in 2021 but finished second. He started on the pole in 2016 and 2017.
Other than that, well, the 2021 iteration doesn’t face much competition for his favorite Daytona 500 memory
