NASCAR star Chase Elliott has broken his silence about the incident involving him and Ross Chastain at the Circuit of the Americas.
Early on at COTA during the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix, Chastain found himself behind Elliott. Heading into Turn 1, Chastain spun out Elliott, which led to the latter spinning out and slamming into the wall.
The crash also saw Connor Zilisch, Todd Gilliland and Denny Hamlin involved. Come the end of the race, Elliott recovered, finishing fourth, while Chastain – who was criticized by Dale Earnhardt Jr. – finished 12th.
While the dust may have settled around the incident, Elliott recently outlined he did not want to comment too much on the Turn 1 COTA crash, adding “he hated it happened.”
Speaking to FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass, Elliott said: “There’s not really a lot for me to comment on. I hate it happened. It’s easy for me to say that I wish it wasn’t on the first lap, which is true, but if that happens at any point in the race, you’re probably going to be bummed out about it.
“Like I said, was really proud of our recovery and to get back to where we were, just hate that we had to recover, hate we had to do what we had to do.”
He added: “Our car was just … it never drove like it did on Saturday which is frustrating. After that, outside of that, I don’t really have a lot to comment on the situation.”
But while Elliott was more reserved and restrained in his comments, Earnhardt Jr. launched into Chastain, adding he believed his actions to be unwarranted while demanding answers from NASCAR.
Earnhardt Jr. said on a recent episode of ‘Dirty Air’: “And so it wasn’t like Ross looked up in the mirror and went, ‘Oh —-, I’m pulling over.
“Like he was probably thinking he had laps of warnings and comments to think, what am I going to do? What are my options? And Ross says, coming out of turn one, ‘You know what? I’m going to let him go. To hell with optics.’
“‘I don’t care what it looks like, but I’d rather finish ninth, 10th, or wherever I’m going to back up to, then get turned around and be backwards and finish 28th or 30th or whatever last place was on the lead lap.’ So Ross chose the better finishing position, 12th.
“It looks a little chicken—-. And he didn’t care what the optics looked like. He didn’t care if it looked like he was being a wuss about it. And then after the race, I guess he didn’t have a comment.”
