One race to go…
After this weekend’s Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International, Chase Elliott has clinched the Cup Series regular season crown.
The 4th place finish was enough to give him the title, however it didn’t come without some controversy.
With 5 laps to go, Chase opted to take the outside lane on the restart with teammate Kyle Larson taking the inside. Larson took the opportunity to bang off of Elliott in the #9 car, pushing him up the track and take the lead.
Elliott was rather short with his post race response:
“Just offer congratulations and get excited for next week.”
He was clearly pissed about the move, and to make matters worse, Larson ran Elliott into the wall at Auto Club Speedway earlier this year to take the checkered flag in California.
Larson admitted to not being proud of it, but saw it as his only opportunity to win the race:
“That was really my only opportunity… I’m not proud of it. But being in the inside lane, the right lane, being the leader, choosing the left lane, it definitely wins out. But when it gets late in the race, it’s definitely risky.
I knew that was my only opportunity to get by him. I feel like our cars were pretty equal today. Had a lot of fun after the green-flag cycle trying to chase him down. Kind of burned my stuff up a little bit.
But the restarts kept me in it and kept our team in it. I’m proud of my guys. Good to get another win here at Watkins Glen and get some more bonus points going into the Playoffs, we haven’t had a lot here this year.’’
I mean, should we just never race a teammate hard?
Will Chase look for payback next week at Daytona? My guess is probably not, but with all four Hendrick drivers in line for a playoff spot, it seems like efforts would be better focused on doing some damage in the playoffs.
The final regular season race will take place this Saturday at Daytona International Speedway.
Here’s the full highlights:
