Chase Elliott is rolling off third at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Landen Ciardullo | The Podium Finish)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Chase Elliott is seeking his first win in 2024 on Sunday during the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
Elliott and the No. 9 team have a notable history at Phoenix, including two fifth-place finishes in both 2021 Phoenix races, paired with one win that secured the Hendrick Motorsports driver his first Cup Series Championship in November of 2020.
The previous two trips to Phoenix have not been as remarkable for Elliott, with the No. 9 placing 16th to end the 2023 season in November and locking in a 28th place finish in November of 2022. Elliott may have missed the spring Phoenix race last season and struggled during the most recent visits to Phoenix, however, that can change tomorrow with the first visit NASCAR makes to Phoenix in 2024.
It appears that the car Elliott and his team brought to Phoenix this time around has significant speed with the 28-year-old placing seventh in Practice 1. After practice, Elliott expressed how he felt about the speed of his car and the changes he and his team made to it during the session.
“Yeah, I definitely thought we made it better from our first run, for sure. That was encouraging,” Elliott detailed. “We were all out of sorts there on our first run. I thought we landed in a decent spot. We certainly have room to improve, but yeah I thought we made it better. I like some of the characteristics that we were able to adjust on, which is always encouraging anytime you start changing things.”
There was even more improvement from practice to qualifying for the No. 9 team with Elliott qualifying to start the race from third, narrowly missing the pole position with a lap time of 27.243 seconds around the 1-mile track compared to Denny Hamlin’s lap time of 27.138 seconds.
Elliott was asked about his expectations, not only for Phoenix this weekend, but for the 2024 season as a whole. The Hendrick driver spoke about the standards that he has both for himself and his team.
“I kind of just look at things internally, I guess, more than anything and we have high expectations of ourselves,” Elliott said. “I have high expectations of myself, personally. I want to perform better than I’ve been before. I want to meet my own expectations on the job that I think I’m capable of doing. I think we have a really strong team and I want to make sure we’re capitalizing on having a good group of people. So, for me it’s really about that.”
High standards are no doubt what have lead Chase Elliott to 18 career Cup Series victories. Starting the race from third place with new spotter Trey Poole, Elliott and the No. 9 team could very well have the speed to live up to their expectations Sunday afternoon and get their first victory of 2024.
The green flag for the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway will drop at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
