Chase Elliott explained his penalty at Richmond Raceway after being called for vehicle interference during the Cook Out 400. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was flagged for cutting through Chase Briscoe’s pit box while entering his own stall.Elliott said the move was not intentional and that his only goal was to make sure his team had enough space to complete their stop. The comments came in a video posted on X by NASCAR reporter Bob Pockrass. He captioned the post,“Chase Elliott on the penalty for vehicle interference that he received for cutting the box of Chase Briscoe (with Briscoe's car in the box) when entering his pit. @NASCARONFOX”Elliott said the layout of pit road made things complicated. He was right behind Briscoe’s car, which was parked just before his stall.With Briscoe’s crew moving tires, Elliott explained he had little room to line up cleanly. If he went too far to the right, he risked blocking Briscoe’s exit. If he angled too far left, his own stop would be compromised. He stressed that he never meant to force Briscoe over or interfere with his team.“Obviously, you know, I would never intentionally do that or try and make him get further left. That's not my intent at all. I don't want to get in a position where I'm angled so far in that now I'm locked him in and we have a bad angle for our stop.” Elliott said.“All I was trying to do was just take as much room as I could to get back straight and not cause another issue at the end of the pitstop,” he added.The penalty came at the end of Stage 1, where Elliott had already made a bold strategic call. His No. 9 team chose not to pit under green, aiming to save an extra set of tires for later in the race.It was a risk, since it meant giving up track position and stage points. Chase Elliott still managed to finish 13th, the best among the six drivers who tried the same approach.Chase Elliott: “The roads got tougher” in title fightBefore qualifying at Richmond, Chase Elliott also spoke about his fight for the regular-season championship. He trails teammate William Byron in the standings and has outlined a three-step plan to close the gap.Elliott said the team needed to qualify well at Watkins Glen, qualify well at Richmond, and avoid crashes the following week. By his own admission, they had already failed one part of the plan. Speaking to Bob Pockrass, Chase Elliott said,“Last week I said we need to do three things. We need to qualify good at Watkins Glen, we need to qualify good here, We need to not crash next week, so we've already not done one of the big things that I said we had to do. So the roads got tougher and I recognize that it's not impossible. It's certainly got tough. We did that to ourselves but not impossible and we'll keep our heads down.”Elliott did qualify well in Richmond, starting fifth. But the penalty and crash destroyed his chances of scoring points. His day ended in the garage, making it the toughest hit yet in his chase for the top seed.The crash also left him further behind Byron, with only two races left before the end of the regular season. Elliott admitted the fight had become harder but said he and his team would keep pushing.