NASCAR: Chase Elliott’s team has been eliminated

The #9 Hendrick Motorsports team of Chase Elliott is no longer eligible to win the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series owner championship.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott secured a spot in his third consecutive NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 this past Sunday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway, giving him a chance to compete for a second title at Phoenix Raceway this coming Sunday afternoon.

However, the 2020 champion’s #9 team has been eliminated before the championship round, marking its first round of 8 elimination since 2019.

The four drivers set to compete for the 2022 championship are Elliott, Team Penske’s Joey Logano, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, and Trackhouse Racing Team’s Ross Chastain.

The four teams set to compete for the 2022 owner championship are Logano’s #22 team, Bell’s #20 team, Chastain’s #1 team, and Kyle Larson’s #5 Hendrick Motorsports team.

It all goes back to Kurt Busch’s qualifying crash at Pocono Raceway in July.

The 23XI Racing driver had locked up a playoff spot by winning the race at Kansas Speedway in May. However, he was sidelined following the aforementioned crash with concussion-like symptoms, and he withdrew his name from the playoffs when it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to return in time.

That freed up a playoff spot for Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, who ended the regular season as the highest placed winless driver in the standings.

What it didn’t do, however, was free up a spot in the owner playoffs, as Busch’s win remained tied to the #45 team and the #45 team advanced. As a result, Blaney’s #12 team didn’t qualify for the playoffs, despite the fact that Blaney himself did.

Bubba Wallace, the driver of 23XI Racing’s #23 Toyota, was shifted over to the #45 Toyota for the playoffs in an attempt to bolster the team’s chances to win the owner championship. The #45 team advanced to the round of 12 as a result of Wallace’s round of 16 win at Kansas Speedway. Blaney advanced to the round of 12 on points.

The #45 team was eliminated after the round of 12, but Blaney advanced to the round of 8, meaning that the semifinal round of the owner playoffs still had a spot open for a team whose driver had already been eliminated.

That team was the #5 team of Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson. Larson finished the round of 12 as the top driver below the round of 8 cut line, but the #5 team finished as the final team above it in the owner playoffs.

Larson won the round of 8 race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and while that win did not lock him a spot in the Championship 4 since he had already been eliminated, it did lock up a spot for the #5 team in the Championship 4 of the owner playoffs.

The #22 team clinched a spot in the Championship 4 when Logano won the round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the #20 team clinched a spot in the Championship 4 when Bell won the round of 8 finale at Martinsville Speedway.

The #1 team originally clinched the final spot on a tiebreaker (tied at 4,137) over the #9 team, though he ended up officially taking it by two points (4,140 to 4,138) after RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski was disqualified from his fourth place finish at Martinsville Speedway and thus stripped of his stage points.

Both Chastain and Elliott finished behind Keselowski, so both gained one position in the final results and thus gained one point. But Elliott finished ahead of Keselowski in the first two stages while Chastain did not, so Chastain gained one position and one point per stage.

Tune in to NBC this Sunday, November 6 at 3:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 from Phoenix Raceway. If you haven’t already done so, begin a free trial of FuboTV today!