Chase Elliott admits he’s not a fan of restarts after ‘crazy’ chaos in Mexico City

Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott secured a podium position in the Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City. Following the same, during a post-race interview, Elliott claimed he faced some challenges during the restarts in the 100-lap event held on Sunday, June 15, 2025.

The former Cup Series champion began the 241.7-mile race outside the top ten drivers, landing a P12 finish in the qualifying session. He had a best time of 93.11 seconds and a top speed of 93.57 mph. Notably, he was 0.33-seconds behind the pole sitter, Shane van Gisbergen.

However, Chase Elliott began moving up from stage one of the race and finished in P9, securing two stage points. He then faced issues in stage two of the race that sent him to P23. Despite being outside the top 20 drivers, the HMS ace paved his way back to the top and secured a podium finish, securing P3.

Reflecting on the challenges faced during the restarts, the Hendrick Motorsports driver told Amazon Prime:

"Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a lot going on, for sure, certainly, you know, from the restarts. But once it singled out, it really became a normal road course, I thought, but the restarts were crazy. Just, you know, you get in those situations, and it's just so tough, because it's like, you don't want to be the one to run in there and kind of gouge people out of the way." [01:27 onwards]

"And as soon as you don't, you get gouged from, you know, from behind. So it's just, I don't, I don't love that, but, you know, that's kind of what we got now. These bunkers are so strong, kind of just chaos there for a few laps, so we get single filed out. And then, then it gets pretty fun," he added.

Chase Elliott crossed the finish line two spots behind the race winner, Trackhouse Racing driver Shane van Gisbergen, earning 36 points. The Auckland-based driver won the race after leading 60 laps with a best lap time of 93.82 seconds.

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Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott faces a winless season, but with consistent results

The #9 Chevy Camaro ZL1 driver, Chase Elliott, faced a similar situation in 2023. He went through the season with no wins before snapping his winless streak at the Texas Motor Speedway in April 2024. However, things refused to get easy for the driver, and since that day, Elliott has come close to winning a race on multiple occasions but hasn't won any, even after 16 races in the 2025 season.

Since the Mexico City race, the HMS driver has been winless in 42 races. Despite this, he has consistently achieved strong results in the 2025 season. He ranks fourth in the Cup Series points table with 500 points to his credit this season.

Furthermore, Chase Elliott has secured eight top-ten and four top-five finishes in 16 starts in the 2025 season. He has also led 95 laps and has an average finish of 11.188.