Chase Elliott lauds Ryan Blaney's 'quiet dominant year' ahead of NASCAR playoffs 

Chase Elliott believes Ryan Blaney's season has not received enough attention despite his strong results. He suggested that if it weren't for engine failures and pit stop mishaps, Blaney would've won 'five to six' races by now.

Blaney began his season strong with a pair of top-10 results, but his outings quickly went to the gutter when he suffered three consecutive DNFs. The Team Penske driver's engine blew up at Phoenix, an ordeal that would follow him at Miami as well.

The 31-year-old wrecked out at four other tracks and endured seven DNFs overall. His lowest placing was at Atlanta, where he finished dead last after starting on the second row.

Despite his bad luck, Blaney has been on a roll recently, logging six consecutive top-10s that culminated in a win at Daytona. Reflecting upon the same, Elliott spoke to The Teardown podcast and said,

"I think from, you know Ryan in particular, he's probably had the quiet most quiet dominant year of anyone I've ever seen in the Cup series. I mean, this guy probably could have won five or six races by now very easily. And uh the numbers don't show that engine failures here or you know bad pit stops there, whatever it was." [19:25 onwards]

"But, you know, we're coming back to some tracks that I really felt like they were lights out way better than everyone else at uh the first time in the season," he added.

Chase Elliott's season was similarly underrated. It took him 18 rounds to capture a win, but he was already second in the standings by then. Moreover, his only DNF came in the 400-lap event at Richmond, the penultimate round of the regular season.

---

Chase Elliott backs up call for additional off weekends

During the same podcast episode, Chase Elliott was asked if he'd support NASCAR going for multiple off weekends. The HMS driver was open to the idea and was even willing to race more weekends, as long as enough breaks were sprinkled in between.

"Increasing the off weekends I think would be a win for everyone and make people hungrier for what we have and what we do on a weekly basis. So I think that's a, you know, would be a healthy thing," he said via aforementioned source.

In line with Chase Elliott's comments, NASCAR included an additional off weekend in the 2026 calendar. The new break comes late into the regular season between indianapolis and Iowa.

Next up, Elliott heads to Darlington Raceway for Round 1 of the playoffs. The Cook Out Southern 400 is set to take place on Sunday, August 31 at 6 PM ET. The No. 9 driver enters the race ranked seventh in the standings, with seven points ahead of the cutline.