NASCAR’s points leader Chase Elliott has his regular season win.
The driver of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 put his car back into victory lane at an oval for the first time in 46 races.
“We had some good circumstances, finally,” Elliott said on the Fox Sports 1 broadcast postrace. “I really appreciate (crew chief) Alan (Gustafson) and or entire team for sticking with it. We’ve had some tough races over the last four or five months. It’s great to get NAPA and Hendrick Motorsports back to victory lane. This one means a lot.”
The win marks the fifth-straight year that Chase Elliott has won a race and the first time a four-car team has had each of its drivers win in the first 11 races of a season.
Elliott becomes the ninth driver to win in the NASCAR Cup Series this season, with 15 races remaining in the regular season.
The Gen7 cars made a big difference to the action at Dover, with a plethora of passing throughout the day.
However, that also came with a track that was chewing up tires like a vintage Atlanta. With the caveat of the camber of the tires in 2022 and a theme we’ve seen develop over the course of the year. Kyle Larson saw a tire go down 27 laps into a green flag run, Tyler Reddick saw a pair of flats and Ty Dillon brought out a caution while coming to pit road.
As the race went on, though, drivers seemed to have it down a bit better. Elliott was the driver that managed to save his stuff better than the rest along with and fellow podium finishers Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ross Chastain winning the attrition war against the surface.
“You know, it’s been a rough start to the season,” Stenhouse Jr. said on FS1. “Our short track program has been off and then, (in) all of our other races that we’ve had good runs, something’s always happened (to sour them).”
Dover remains a consistent track for Stenhouse Jr. as he earns his 14th top 20 at the Monster Mile in 18 starts.
It came at a time where the No. 47 driver was in dire need of a big finish, and pushes Stenhouse Jr. at least somewhat closer to the cutline – he’s 90 points outside of the cutoff as things stand right now.
“It was a really great day for us,” Stenhouse said on the broadcast. “We had a car capable of winning. This feels good. Hopefully we can carry this momentum on to the big tracks. We have a lot of tracks we’re good at coming up. It was a good day for us.”
Chastain, meanwhile, earned his sixth podium finish in 11 starts this season as well as a seventh top five to add to his stout early season numbers.
The series will return to the track next week at Darlington for its annual Throwback weekend. Sunday’s race at the track, the Goodyear 400, is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. CT on Fox Sports 1.
NASCAR Cup Series Results
DuraMAX Drydene 400
Dover Motor Speedway
Monday, May 2, 2022
1. Chase Elliott
2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
3. Ross Chastain
4. Christopher Bell
5. Alex Bowman
6. Kyle Larson
7. Kyle Busch
8. Chris Buescher
9. Kevin Harvick
10. Erik Jones
11. Justin Haley
12. Martin Truex Jr.
13. Chase Briscoe
14. Daniel Suarez
15. Cole Custer
16. Bubba Wallace
17. Michael McDowell
18. Corey LaJoie
19. Aric Almirola
20. Brad Keselowski
21. Denny Hamlin
22. William Byron
23. Austin Dillon
24. Harrison Burton
25. Ryan Preece
26. Ryan Blaney
27. Ty Dillon
28. Todd Gilliland
29. Joey Logano
30. Tyler Reddick
31. Kurt Busch
32. Josh Bilicki
33. AJ Allmendinger
34. Cody Ware
35. BJ McLeod
36. Austin Cindric
