Leaving no doubt that he’s as beloved as ever by his massive fan base, Chase Elliott recently earned the NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award for the seventh year in a row.
Thankfully for the second-generation driver, his legions of supporters haven’t made his recent success on the race track a litmus test for their loyalty.
If they did, many would undoubtedly have moved on by now.
How badly has Elliott stunk the past two seasons, compared with the previous five? Before we wave the green flag on 2025, a quick review seems in order.
Wins Have Been Few and Far Between for Elliott Since 2022
After going winless but reaching the playoffs on the basis of points in his first two seasons as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, Elliott enjoyed five consecutive winning seasons from 2018-2022. Over that stretch, the Hendrick Motorsports driver amassed 18 victories, claimed the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship and finished no worse than 10th in the standings.
Then came 2023 — when just about everything that could have gone wrong did for Elliott, who endured his first winless season in six years and missed the playoffs for the first time as a competitor in NASCAR’s premier division. In all fairness to Elliott, though, his failure to reach Victory Lane and qualify for the playoffs was largely a result of being sidelined for seven races — six due to an injury suffered while snowboarding and one while serving a suspension for deliberately wrecking Denny Hamlin in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
In missing so much time, Elliott simply dug himself a points hole he could not overcome.
Despite Staying Healthy and Out of Trouble, Elliott Didn’t Deliver in 2024
Now fast-forward to 2024. While Elliott competed in all 36 points races and managed to avoid the major issues that marred his 2023 season, this past season was still a disappointment relative to most of his career. On the plus side, the son of 1988 Cup Series champion Bill Elliott did snap a lengthy absence from Victory Lane when he triumphed at Texas Motor Speedway in April.
Elliott never won again, however, and finished seventh in the standings after missing the Championship 4 for the second year in a row.
In all fairness to Elliott, though, his most recent Championship 4 miss was by but a whisker: He finished second in the Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville Speedway, where with a win he would have clinched an automatic berth in the final round at Phoenix Raceway.
“All I know is that we came up one spot short, and it’s unfortunate,” the dejected former series champion said after leading 129 of 500 laps at Martinsville.
The 2025 Cup Series Season Could Set a Tone for Chase Elliott for Years to Come
Prior to his dismal 2023, Elliott was a championship finalist in three consecutive seasons, following up his 2020 title run with a fourth-place points finish in both 2021 and 2022.
A lack of wins and less-than-stellar points finishes in 2023 and 2024 don’t tell the full story of Elliott’s significant drop-off in performance, however. In addition to falling short of the mark in these areas, he led more laps each season from 2020-2022 than he did in 2023 and 2024 combined.
Will 2025 bring about a resurgence for Elliott and his No. 9 bunch led by veteran crew chief Alan Gustafson? Or will struggling to find their way to Victory Lane and seriously compete for the championship become their new norm?
That remains to be seen, of course. But win or lose, Elliott seems almost destined for the consolation prize of once again being named the sport’s most popular driver.
“You could be anywhere from Darlington, South Carolina to Los Angeles, and when you see that type of support spread out across the entire country, it’s kind of wild when you sit back and think about that,” Elliott said just before accepting his latest NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award. “I never take that for granted.”
