Chase Elliott will start at the back of the field in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Kansas Speedway after an engine problem emerged during Saturday’s practice session.
Elliott turned the 15th fastest lap in practice for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App), but the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was on pit road with the hood upwards. the second half of the 20 minute session. After his team worked in the engine bay, Elliott was able to compete in the Busch Light Pole Qualifying, but he set the slowest lap in the 38-car field at 240,000 mph, some two seconds off the pace of the frontrunners.
Elliott will start last in the opening race of the Round of 12 in the Cup Series postseason. A representative from Team No. 9 indicated that the crew was still evaluating the issue as qualifying neared completion.
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“We went through all the things you can check on pit road,” said Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion. “Obviously when you have an engine problem like that, it can be difficult to identify what exactly is broken. For me, I came out of turn 2 and actually felt like the cylinder went down a cylinder, changed audibly and lost a lot of power, so I knew something was wrong and came in as quickly as possible, just to avoid it screw up even worse. But such a downer. What a terrible time for something to go wrong. Hendrick’s motorcycle shop has been so good my entire career. I don’t even think I’ve solved a handful of engine problems that we’ve had over the course of my entire career, so I hate it, but I would much rather it happen today than tomorrow.”
Elliott reached the first round of 16 in the postseason, and he enters the three races that make up the round of 12 ranked seventh among the remaining twelve title contenders. He is six points ahead of the preliminary elimination line going into Sunday’s 400-miler.
