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WATKINS GLEN, NY – The penalty imposed on Chase Elliott’s team ahead of Sunday’s race marked the third time this season that infractions have cost the Hendrick Motorsports driver points.
These lost points are important and could have an impact on his chances of winning a second consecutive Cup title.
On Sunday at Watkins Glen, NASCAR awarded him 10 points for the rear window air deflector violation that was discovered during a pre-race inspection.
It came after the 25 points NASCAR took from Elliott last month when his team failed to have the correct engine sealed in their car in New Hampshire.
Elliott’s summer troubles began in June in Nashville when he was disqualified because his car had five loose lug nuts after the race. He scored 38 points that day, but the disqualification reduced his point total to one and cost him the playoff point he scored for winning a stage.
It is 72 points that he lost because of these infractions. The maximum a driver can earn in a race is 60 points, so it’s like Elliott has missed a race with all the points his team have given this year.
And that’s probably more than 72 points lost. Elliott has had to start at full back five times this season. As he entered the top 10 to score points in the first leg each time, how many more points could he have scored had he started closer to the front?
If Elliott had those 72 points he lost due to infractions, he would be third in the standings for the season with three races to go. Instead, he’s seventh.
What’s the problem ? He’s going to make the playoffs anyway some would say.
If Elliott finished the regular season seventh in the standings, he would earn four more points in the playoffs. But if he finished the regular season third, he would receive eight points in the playoffs.
So he could lose four points in the playoffs. Add the playoff point he lost for the Nashville disqualification and that’s five playoff points that could be lost.
So consider this: if Elliott hadn’t won at Martinsville in last season’s penultimate race, he wouldn’t have qualified for Championship 4 in Phoenix and competed for the title. Kevin Harvick finished five points ahead of Elliott and would have taken the final transfer spot if Elliott hadn’t won Martinsville
That is why points are important.
And why it’s baffling how many points Elliott’s team have wasted this season.
FRIENDLY DUEL
Kyle Larson flew with Denny Hamlin to Watkins Glen this weekend. Hamlin did not wait for Larson after the race as Larson was delayed with all the homework of a winner.
That’s okay, Larson has returned to the Hendrick Motorsports team plane.
Larson and Hamlin haven’t let their run for the regular-season championship – and the five extra playoff points that come with it – sour their friendship.
“You can still be friends with your competition,” Larson said before the race. “When you’re on the track I want to beat him as bad or better than the rest just because he’s a friend and we’re competitive. You can still be friends… I think when you can separate the two (on track and off track) that’s good.
It’s easy for Larson to do this because, he says, “I’m a friendly person. I feel that I am easy going.
Larson’s victory on Sunday at Watkins Glen tied him with Hamlin for the lead in points. Hamlin has been leading the points since the end of February.
“Honestly, I like it because it keeps me in shape all year round,” Hamlin said of the pressure from Larson. “It really inspires me to treat every race like a playoff race. … If that had been a 100 point lead like earlier in the season, maybe you relax a bit, then all of a sudden you have to activate it when the playoffs start. It pushes us to give our all in every race.
Larson said he faces challenges claiming the top spot by the end of the regular season on Aug. 28 at Daytona.
“HI’m so good at Daytona too, so it would be nice to have a good few weeks and have that point ahead because I know he’s going to go, ”said Larson of three-time winner Hamlin. Daytona 500. “Anything can happen at Daytona, but I know he’s going to go there and he’s going to score stage points and fight for the win.
“I know he considers me the same. If he could enter Daytona tied or ahead, he will feel like he has the advantage.
Larson’s team leader Cliff Daniels said he didn’t mind his driver, knowing how it would motivate Larson.
“We think the same way a lot, and we both know that if someone beats us, we have to aim for that goal and we have to study a lot harder, ”Daniels said. “If I think I’m good I’m not very comfortable, and if he thinks he’s good he’s not very comfortable. He is therefore comfortable knowing that he has to improve today to be better tomorrow. And I have a bit of the same personality.
“I think it’s pretty healthy that he thinks that, and I also think of myself and our team. We’re going to watch (Sunday) and be critical.
“I know the guys on my pit crew very well; they will criticize our first stop. You are all going to write about our second stop, but my guys at the store on Monday are going to be fighting for the first stop. My engineer and I were already talking about things we could have done to make our car better than (Chase Elliott’s car) because (Elliott’s car) was the better car at the end of the race. Like it’s a real thing.
“Even starting out here as the winner, we already know two key areas where we can be better, and I think Kyle doing that, considering some of these races, is probably not a bad thing.”
WORK TO DO
There was a lot of talk last month about a Next Gen car crash test and questions about it. NASCAR said on July 19 that an independent safety panel reviewed data from the June 30 test crash at Talladega Superspeedway.
Denny Hamlin said he wanted to take a closer look at the results and better understand what the test showed.
“I’m not going to buckle up unless I know what I’m sticking to,” Hamlin said ahead of Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen. “I don’t think any of the pilots will do it. Hopefully in the next week we will have these conversations and go through all the data. “
And what does he want to see?
“This (the Next Gen car) is no worse than our current car,” he said. “That’s it. NASCAR developed it. I just want to make sure and see that it doesn’t get any worse.
“We put in SAFER gates for a reason – because drivers were ringing their bells and having concussions and problems. Many old riders who have raced before the SAFER barriers tell me “I am not right to have hit all these walls all these years.”
“If you have a car that’s worse, that kind of takes away the benefit of what the SAFER barrier was. Now we are back where we were. As long as it’s better or equal to what we have, then I think we’re all good.
Brad Keselowski sees the question differently.
“I think the cake is done and we’re going to race with this stuff,” he said. “Whether I’m comfortable or not only matters as long as I’m comfortable enough to focus on performance when the car gets here.
“I’m not going to think about security. That’s what he is at this point. “
NASCAR informed drivers on July 4 that crash tests of a Next Gen car “showed good and comparable performance” compared to other right-hand front crashes with non-Next Gen cars.
The review of crash data was the last item before the Next Gen chassis was released to the Cup organizations. The teams report that they have assembled the car while waiting for some parts from the suppliers.
This is the first time in NASCAR history that single suppliers provide the key parts of the car instead of teams making many of those parts.
Multiple tests are planned in the coming months for the Next Gen car. Tests with multiple teams are expected to take place in at least Daytona, Charlotte Oval, Charlotte Roval and Phoenix before the start of 2022.
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