“It’s a car design flaw”: Days after criticizing NASCAR’s DVP, Chase Elliott scrutinizes the ‘root cause’ of the problem

Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott blamed the NextGen car, calling it the root problem for the modifications in the NASCAR Damaged Vehicle Policy. Earlier, he criticized the rule that affected the Yellawood 500 at Talladega.

NASCAR officials received criticism for reportedly modifying the DVP after a crash at Talladega claimed 28 cars in the final stages of the race. Chase Elliott and Chase Briscoe were then towed back to their stalls for the team to work on the damages.

Recently after a meeting with the crew chiefs, NASCAR implemented a new rule for the DVP. According to this, if a car appears that it can continue in a race after a major crash but cannot drive itself back, it will be towed to its stall. The 7-minute repair window timer will only start once the tow truck has left the garage.

This rule will be used in the remaining races of the season. When Chase Elliott was asked if it should have been implemented from the 2025 season, he mentioned that NASCAR first needed to fix the root cause of the issue, which was the NextGen car's design.

"It's changed so much since this car came along," Elliott told Frontstretch (at 3:50). "I mean early on you had guys being towed back to pit road a lot you know and then obviously that changed and then last week they towed a few of us back. I think when you look at just the overall situation, you know, it's a car design flaw, number one. So the first thing to do would be to fix the actual root cause problem and not be put in this position in the first place."

Meanwhile, Elliott was also one of the first drivers to criticize the modifications in the DVP after the race at Talladega.

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Chase Elliott's criticism of NASCAR's DVP

As mentioned, Elliott and Briscoe were one of the drivers who were towed back after the crash at Talladega. He mentioned that his car was running at minimum speed and hence was eligible to be towed back. However, he claimed that some of the other cars that were unable to maintain minimum speed were also allowed to get fixed. He suggested that NASCAR should reconsider the points after the race.

"I’m really curious to see how they police the DVP thing because not all the cars that got fixed made, you know, got themselves off a DVP. So I think it’s really important to at least get their scoring right because our guys did a good job to get our car fixed and we met minimum speed, which if the race was not in green-white checker situation, they would’ve been parked and we would’ve kept going. You know, I hope there’s some scoring scenario that makes that right," Chase Elliott said.

Heading into Charlotte, Elliott is placed right above the cutline of the playoffs standings with 13 points more than Joey Logano.