Elliott needs a win to qualify for the playoffs
LONG POND, Pa. — Chase Elliott had just landed from the plane ride back from Pocono when texts started coming in from friends congratulating him on his latest NASCAR victory. Hold up.
What victory?
“No, we ran third,” Elliott said he replied.
Finished third, yes — but won the Pocono race, all because of a bizarre disqualification that stripped Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch of their 1-2 finishes and sent Elliott to victory last year. And he never led a lap. Hamlin was the first disqualified Cup winner since April 17, 1960, when Emanuel Zervakis’ victory at Wilson Speedway in North Carolina was thrown out because of an oversized fuel tank.
The NASCAR inspection team found issues in both JGR Toyotas that affected the aerodynamics and tossed out the finish.
Hamlin’s win gave him the career lead — for a few hours, at least — at Pocono with seven. Hamlin’s young daughter burst into tears of joy and he sent her to retrieve the checkered flag. Taylor Hamlin clutched the flag as she slid through the passenger’s side window and took a victory lap around Pocono with dad at the wheel. Taylor Hamlin still owns the flag. As for the winner’s prize, Hamlin shipped the Eagle trophy to Elliott, perhaps the least prized one in his possession.
“I didn’t want to celebrate it, personally,” Elliott said. “That’s not how I want to win a race. We all want to go win them outright and make sure we feel like we earned it. We want to earn it every week.”
NASCAR’s decision reignited the debate on whether winners should have wins rescinded because of rules violations.
Winning teams found in violation of the rules before 2019 were penalized with postrace fines, point deductions and/or suspensions. But drivers didn’t have victories taken away from them until then.
Elliott, the 2020 NASCAR champion, had five wins last season but has yet to take the checkered flag this year. Elliott has missed seven races this season because of injuries and a suspension, putting him in position to have to win a race essentially to make the playoffs.
Elliott is not among the top 16 drivers in points. Pocono marked the first of six races left in NASCAR’s version of the regular season that will set the playoff field.
“I think it has been in some ways enjoyable to find new challenges and kind of push yourself in different areas,” Elliott said. “It doesn’t really feel a ton different I guess than like a playoff run, like in the final 10 (races).”
INDYCAR: In Newton, Iowa, Will Power put together two fast laps Saturday to win both pole positions for this weekend’s IndyCar Series doubleheader at Iowa Speedway.
The lineups for the series’ lone doubleheader were determined by individual lap speeds — the first lap determined the lineup for Saturday’s 250-lap race, with the second lap setting the lineup for Sunday’s 250-lap event.
Josef Newgarden won on Saturday at the .875-mile oval, winning for the fifth time at the track in Saturday’s opening 250-lap race of a weekend doubleheader.
It was Newgarden’s third win of the season, all on ovals. Newgarden also won at Texas Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500.
Scott McLaughlin finished second. Pato O’Ward, who along with Newgarden won in last season’s doubleheader at Iowa, was third, and Marcus Ericsson finished fourth.
FORMULA ONE: After taking pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday, Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton sat on the grid’s No. 1 bollard as he waited for a rarely beaten Max Verstappen to climb out of his Red Bull.
Hamilton watched and savored every second, because it’s been a long time coming.
Hamilton’s pole was his first since the penultimate Formula One race of 2021, and ended defending champion Verstappen’s bid for a sixth straight pole.
Hamilton pumped his left fist several times after placing just .003 seconds ahead of Verstappen on his last lap to secure a record-extending 104th pole but first since Saudi Arabia in December 2021.