Chase Elliott provided detailed insight into the late-race incident with Justin Allgaier that cost him the lead during the Xfinity Series race at Pocono Raceway. The Hendrick Motorsports driver explained that he had no choice but to back off and “give him the space,” as otherwise, both drivers would have likely crashed and been “screwed” in the race outcome.

The race on June 21 saw Allgaier start in ninth position, just ahead of his JR Motorsports teammate Connor Zilisch, who ultimately won the race by capitalizing on the incident involving Allgaier and Elliott. With 13 laps remaining during a race restart, Allgaier was positioned on the inside of Elliott. However, Allgaier washed up over turn 1 and nearly collided with Elliott’s No. 17 Chevy. This forced both drivers to back off and allowed the chasing pack to pass them.

At that point in the race, Allgaier had led for 10 laps, while Elliott had led the most laps with 38. Despite the setback, Elliott managed to regain momentum and finished within the top 5, whereas Allgaier fell back to finish around the top 10.

Speaking to the media after the race, Elliott said, “It definitely changed my ending for sure. I saw him (Allgaier) rapidly approaching my door and typically at that point you either crash or give him the space to gather it up.” He further explained, “I think he just ran in there too hard and caught a bad section of air or something weird. It got him turned sideways and turned him towards my door really fast… It was up to me at that point whether we were going to have two destroyed race cars. At that point, we were screwed. It’s not worth tearing up this sh*t for no reason.”

This result marked Justin Allgaier’s 11th top-10 finish of the season. Notably, Allgaier had a near crash in the previous weekend’s race in Mexico due to a mechanical issue that forced him behind the wall for repairs, but he still managed to finish 34th.

After the incident, Allgaier and Elliott were seen having a friendly conversation on pit road. Elliott reflected on their interaction, saying, “I have a lot of respect for Justin. We’ve always raced each other with a lot of respect… I don’t have any ill will against him. I hate that he made a mistake with me there.”

Despite the less-than-ideal finish, Justin Allgaier remains firmly in the lead of the driver standings with 618 points, holding an 82-point advantage over his closest rival, Austin Hill.

The article was written by Vignesh Kanna, a motorsports journalist for Sportskeeda, who covers NASCAR and Formula 1, and is passionate about the sport and its underdog stories.