THE MODERATOR: We have our driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Chase Elliott.
We’ll go straight to questions for Chase.
Q. You have been running well. What has your mindset been over the first 10 races? You’ve been on top of the points standings but haven’t consistently shown that race-winning speed. How has that affected your mindset and how rewarding is it to get to Victory Lane today?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I’m not really sure it’s affected my approach. I want to do good every week, regardless of what’s going on around me.
Just proud of our team for sticking with it. I feel like we’ve had a lot of pace at different times throughout the year. We just hadn’t put an entire race together really until today I feel like.
Been fast at one point or fast at another. Just not quite putting it all together all in one three-and-a-half, four-hour time frame. It was just nice to do that today.
Proud of our team. Proud of Alan. Really just our entire group for continuing to bring good attitudes to the racetrack. Coming in with the right mindset every week regardless of what happened the week before. To me that says a lot about their character and the kind of group that we have.
As always, just really proud of them and excited to get a win. Still fairly early in the season. That’s always a good thing. Good opportunity to build some more wins and bonus points before we get to the Playoffs. A lot of racing left, though, for sure.
Q. This is the first oval you’ve scored multiple wins on in your Cup career. What is it about Dover that suits your driving style?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I’m not sure. I feel like Jeff and Alan had a great package here to start really before I came along. It was much like the road courses really.
When you step into a situation that has a really nice foundation as you’re trying to learn, it makes that learning process a lot easier.
I would say that probably falls under that category more than anything that I do special behind the wheel.
Q. Were you concerned at all about tire wear on the last run? Especially when you have that big of a lead, are you thinking at all about how much can I, don’t want to say “save,” but were you trying to conserve?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I was certainly thinking about it. We had some cording issues on and off throughout the day. It had been getting better those last two runs. Just based on how hard everybody was driving, the fact it was getting better with the added aggressiveness over the last couple runs made me feel better about it.
I had a better feeling. I still felt like there was going to be a caution. I don’t think we ran that long all day. I felt like the odds of us getting a caution, the fact that we were leading, was pretty high. I was kind of waiting on that as always.
Fortunately didn’t get one. Was able to run it out, control our gap there, get NAPA and our team back to Victory Lane.
Q. What is the mood for you and around the shop when you see your other three teammates win? Obviously you want to win, but do you feel pressure? Is it good-natured stuff around the shop?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, look, I want to win always. There’s a lot of noise. I understand you guys are doing your jobs. I respect that. But at the end of the day, like, I want to win just as bad at Daytona at the start of the season when no one has any stickers on their cars just as bad as I do when we get to Phoenix at the end of the season regardless of what has gone on.
My drive to win, to do my job to the best of my ability, doesn’t change whether we are struggling, whether we are doing very good, whether I’m in a contract here, whether I’m not, whether my teammates have won and I haven’t. Those circumstances are fine and cool and great, but I want to do my job to the very best of my ability all the time no matter what, no matter the track, no matter the circumstances, always.
Does that answer your question?
Q. Yes.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Thank you.
Q. How did you think the Next Gen car at this track compared to the previous iteration?
CHASE ELLIOTT: You know, different. There’s certainly some differences. I think the tire is different, just the way the tire is constructed.
Without, like, getting into some super fine details, it felt pretty similar, I would say, would probably be the best way to describe it for just everybody watching the race and the fans. Very similar. I don’t think it looked a ton different from the outside looking in, just watching guys race around each other. It looked very similar to races of old.
There are some details on how the car drives, there are some differences that we’ll certainly try to attack and make better before we come back.
Overall, from a general point of view, pretty similar to Dover.
Q. Do you think the tire was a big change as well?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Seemed like it to me. Seemed like it had an impact on how the cars drove. We had a little bit of room to move around, not a ton. It did promote some movement there later into a run. We just never had a super long run, to be honest with you. I think that last run was our longest, it was only 65 or 60, something like that.
Yeah, I would like to see some longer runs. I think that probably tells the story of the tire more so than short restarts and little stints like that.
Q. How did the rain delay impact how you approached today?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, for us personally as a team, we were able to kind of think about our struggles yesterday. I actually feel like it might have helped us a little bit.
Did it change the results? I don’t know. I mean, I think we probably would have ended up probably headed in the same direction with our car. But it did give us some more time to think about it.
Other than that, it’s not really a ton different. You just kind of go to bed, Groundhog Day, just try again.
Had less people here today which was a bummer. That was a great crowd we had yesterday. Biggest crowd I have seen here personally since I’ve been racing, which I thought was really cool. Proud to see that.
THE MODERATOR: Chase, congratulations on the win today.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Thank you, guys.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
