NASCAR’s Chase Elliott Details His Fast Start to 2022 Cup Series Season (Exclusive)

The NASCAR 2022 Cup Series series is still in its early stages, but Chase Elliott is off to a fast start. After seven races, Elliott is tied with Ryan Blaney for the lead in the Cup Series standings despite not winning a race. In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Elliott explained how he’s been able to find success in the first two months of the season. 

“I think we’ve had pace at times,” Elliott exclusively told PopCulture. “I think the successful part of it has been we’ve had a good balance and been able to be fast at certain points throughout a race. I think the not-so-good side of it is we just haven’t been able to put a whole race together yet. It seems like we’ll either be strong at one point, not so strong at another. Just need to put a whole event together and I think we’ll be fine. Good news is, I think, the keys to success have been all laid out there in front of us at different times, we just haven’t capitalized on it yet. I think we can, I think we will, and look forward to more opportunities ahead.”

In seven races, Elliott has finished in the top 10 four times and the top five once. Additionally, the 26-year-old who won the 2020 Cup Series title has led 91 laps but has not collected a stage win yet. As Elliott mentioned, putting a race together is something that hasn’t happened for his team. But he believes it will happen soon. 

“We just got to put it all together, start to finish, on race day,” Elliott said. “I think we’re very capable of doing that. I feel like a lot of times we’ve done all of the hard parts throughout a weekend. We just haven’t pieced together some of the essential pieces to a successful day. So, yeah. We’ll see how the next one goes.”

On Saturday night, Elliott and the rest of the NASCAR drivers will be in Ridgeway, Virginia to compete in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at Martinsville Speedway. Elliott has had success at Martinsville, winning the Xfinity 500 in 2020 and finishing second in last year’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain 400. But as well as Elliott has performed at Martinsville, he knows it would be an easy day in the office. 

“Well, Martinsville is a tough place,” Elliott revealed. “A place that I really struggled with there early on and took me a long time to ever have any kind of success there, it seemed like. We finally got a package that suited me and how I wanted to drive the racetrack. I was able to make some adjustments driving that I think better suited Martinsville. We ended up in a pretty good spot there by the end of that last generation’s car.    

“The problem with that now is we have a new car and we’re going back to the drawing board and really having to rethink a lot of our setup thoughts and how we want to attack the racetrack. I think it’s going to be just a little different, this trip than it has been in the past. I hope that I’m still able to find that balance and find that good spot to be in Martinsville… I feel like has just razor-thin of an opportunity to get your balance perfect, for me.”