Chase Elliot He did more than win Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He removed all doubt that he is the best candidate to win the second NASCAR Cup championship in three seasons.
Ross Chastain, Joey Logano, William Byron and Denny Hamlin He may be only one behind in the winning column, but Elliott has built momentum heading into the final seven races of the regular season, an extension that plays into his strengths.
Training sessions on the road are usually Chase Elliott’s strength
The first thing to note about Chase Elliott building a fairly comfortable lead in points more than two-thirds of the way through the regular season is that he did so without taking advantage of his strength. seven his 13 career wins NASCAR Cup Series The season’s entry came in road laps, but the three wins in 2022 were on the oval.
In three training sessions on the road this year, Elliott put 26The tenth in Fontana, eighth in Sonoma, and second in Rhode America. Oddly enough, the three drivers who rode in Victory Lane were all first-time winners of the Cup Series. While they were making headlines, Elliott had some race points and seven stage points, but no stage wins counted toward the playoff standings.
The odds are strongly that that will change in the upcoming road courses at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen. Winning one of the two will boost your Season Points and Playoff Points.
Chase Elliott is way ahead of him at this point in 2020
Chase Elliott went to the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series qualifiers as the seventh in regular season points. Kevin Harvick (seven) and Denny Hamlin (six) combined for 13 regular season wins and started the playoffs with 42 and 27 points, respectively. By comparison, Elliott won two races and earned just 16 points in the playoffs. He didn’t capture the points lead until the Martinsville race, the final pre-Championship 4 competition.
Through 19 races that season, Elliott finished fifth in points and fell behind leader Hamlin in playoff points, 28-10. He took another win along his stretch but lost quite a bit of ground along the way despite six top-10 performances in the last seven races before qualifying.
Elliott was similarly strong last year, with six more results in the top ten. If he repeats this summer, he should finish the regular season easily with a minimum of another 20 break points, giving him at least 40 points.
Recent results, including two wins in the last three races, bode well for Elliott.
Atlanta was cute with Dawsonville’s favorite son
Being from Dawsonville, Georgia, Chase Elliott considers Atlanta Motor Speedway to be his home track. This weekend, there was no place like home. Elliott won the first two stages and the race, and racked up his maximum breakout points on the day.
The seven points raised his points total to 20, which ultimately led to the four drivers being separated from the four drivers who had two wins each. If he gets a 40-point playoff after the summer Daytona race, Elliott could have a 20-point lead over everyone else on the field.
This will be a huge step towards achieving the first two conversions.
Here’s what the current score picture looks like:
| Rank | driver | points | wins the race | Stage wins | break points | top 5 | Top 10 |
| 1 | Chase Elliot | 684 | 3 | 5 | 20 | 6 | 13 |
| 2 | Ryan Blaney | 637 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 10 |
| 3 | Ross Chastain | 634 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 10 | 13 |
| 4 | Kyle Larson | 579 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 10 |
| 5 | Kyle Bush | 569 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 11 |
| 6 | Martin Truex Jr. | 566 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| 7 | Joey Logano | 562 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 5 | 8 |
| 8 | Christopher Bell | 523 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| 9 | Alex Bowman | 508 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
| 10 | William Byron | 505 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 5 |
| 11 | Kevin Harvick | 504 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
| 12 | Eric Almerola | 481 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 13 | Austin Cendrick | 465 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| 14 | Tyler Riddick | 458 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| 15th | Daniel Suarez | 451 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 7 |
| 16 | Kurt Busch | 449 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| Rank | driver | points | wins the race | Stage wins | break points | top 5 | Top 10 |
| 17 | Eric Jones | 447 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 18 | Chase Brisco | 443 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| 19 | Denny Hamlin | 409 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 4 |
| 20 | Austin Dillon | 407 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| 21 | Michael McDowell | 406 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| 22 | Justin Haley | 374 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 23 | Chris Bucher | 360 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 24 | Bubba Wallace | 345 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 25 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 333 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| 26 | Cole Custer | 323 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 27 | Ty Dillon | 310 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Rank | driver | points | wins the race | Stage wins | break points | top 5 | Top 10 |
| 28 | Harrison Burton | 308 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 29 | Todd Gilliland | 284 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 30 | Brad Kiselowski | 266 | 0 | 0 | -10 | 0 | 2 |
| 31 | Corey Lagoy | 222 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 32 | kodi ware | 148 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 33 | David Rajan | 61 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 34 | joy hand | 44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 35 | Greg Bevel | 24 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Jacques Villeneuve | 15th | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Boris Said | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Kyle Tilly | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
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