NASCAR Road America: Elliott returns to form with win

Elliott took command of the race on lap 46 of the 62-lap race, as Kyle Busch passed Aric Almirola on a restart and Elliott then cleared Busch in Turn 12 to grab the lead for the final time.

On lap 59, Christopher Bell got around Busch to move into second but couldn’t mount a serious challenge and finished 5.7 seconds behind Elliott.

The win is Elliott’s second this season – the other came in a rain-shortened race at Circuit of the Americas.

In his career, seven of Elliott’s 13 wins have now come on road courses.

“Just really proud of our team for overcoming some adversity early and having to start in the back, having good pitstops,” Elliott said. “Had a really fast Chevrolet. Just so proud.

“We’ve had a rough few weeks, so it feels really good. I guess I was supposed to do a burnout here [in Turn 5], I’m sorry. I missed the memo. I did a really cool one on the frontstretch.”

On the challenge of tackling a new track in the Cup Series, Elliott said: “This track has a lot of character to it. It’s so long. You have a lot of opportunity to make mistakes or be good whenever you hit it.

“I mean, four miles is a long course. It just has a lot of character to it, a lot of bumps, a lot of sections that are really tricky to get through.

“I think conserving your tyre was actually a little bit of a thing today, which to be honest we don’t have much of that I feel like any more.

“It was a little different race.”

Kyle Busch ended up third, Kurt Busch was fourth and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five.

Completing the top 10 were Chase Briscoe (who tied his career high), Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr and Matt DiBenedetto.

Following the break between stages 2 and 3, several cars pitted but Kyle Busch stayed out and took over the lead.

But DiBenedetto was able to get around Busch near Turn 12 on the restart lap and reclaimed the lead, before Elliott went to the inside of DiBenedetto entering Turn 1 on Lap 38 and came away with the lead for the first time in the race.

On lap 43, Anthony Alfredo blew a right-rear brake rotor, went off course in Turn 1 and ended up stuck in the gravel trap. That brought out a caution, setting up what could be the final pit stops of the race.

Ryan Blaney had pit just before the caution to repair damage to his hood which set himself up for a big gain in track position on the restart.

Most of the lead-lap cars pitted under the caution when Anthony Alfredo blew a right-rear brake rotor and ended up stuck in the Turn 1 gravel, with Kyle Busch the first off pit road.

He soon grabbed grabbed the lead on the restart only to see Elliott power by him in Turn 12 to reclaim the top spot, from which he began to open up a 3.4-second lead.

Earlier, Reddick took over the lead when several drivers pit under green and held off William Byron - who claimed the Stage 1 win under caution - to take the Stage 2 win.

Result

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Laps Led
1	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	62	2:54'33.804			24
2	20	Christopher Bell		Toyota	62	2:54'39.509	5.705	5.705
3	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	62	2:54'43.635	9.831	4.126	4
4	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	62	2:54'49.343	15.539	5.708
5	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	62	2:54'50.630	16.826	1.287
6	14	Chase Briscoe		Ford	62	2:54'53.741	19.937	3.111
7	42	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	62	2:54'53.920	20.116	0.179
8	8	Tyler Reddick		Chevrolet	62	2:54'56.177	22.373	2.257	5
9	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	62	2:54'56.988	23.184	0.811	1
10	21	Matt DiBenedetto		Ford	62	2:54'59.074	25.270	2.086	10
11	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	62	2:55'02.523	28.719	3.449
12	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Chevrolet	62	2:55'07.045	33.241	4.522
13	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	62	2:55'09.143	35.339	2.098
14	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	62	2:55'09.735	35.931	0.592	1
15	22	Joey Logano		Ford	62	2:55'10.072	36.268	0.337
16	5	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	62	2:55'11.834	38.030	1.762
17	41	Cole Custer		Ford	62	2:55'13.939	40.135	2.105
18	17	Chris Buescher		Ford	62	2:55'17.886	44.082	3.947
19	43	Erik Jones		Chevrolet	62	2:55'21.261	47.457	3.375
20	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	62	2:55'25.637	51.833	4.376
21	7	Corey Lajoie		Chevrolet	62	2:55'29.906	56.102	4.269
22	48	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	62	2:55'33.548	59.744	3.642
23	52	Josh Bilicki		Ford	62	2:55'38.123	1'04.319	4.575
24	23	Bubba Wallace		Toyota	62	2:55'38.238	1'04.434	0.115
25	77	Justin Haley		Chevrolet	62	2:55'38.627	1'04.823	0.389
26	96	Ty Dillon		Toyota	62	2:55'43.620	1'09.816	4.993
27	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	62	2:55'49.080	1'15.276	5.460
28	15	James Davison		Chevrolet	62	2:55'57.763	1'23.959	8.683
29	16	A.J. Allmendinger		Chevrolet	62	2:56'01.242	1'27.438	3.479
30	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	62	2:56'08.202	1'34.398	6.960
31	51	Cody Ware		Chevrolet	62	2:56'09.835	1'36.031	1.633
32	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	62	2:56'10.647	1'36.843	0.812
33	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	62	2:56'11.170	1'37.366	0.523	15
34	00	Quin Houff		Chevrolet	62	2:56'36.957	2'03.153	25.787
35	78	Kyle Tilley		Ford	60	2:55'50.710	2 Laps	2 Laps
36	99	Daniel Suarez		Chevrolet	53	2:56'24.856	9 Laps	7 Laps
37	38	Anthony Alfredo		Ford	42	2:02'17.589	20 Laps	11 Laps
38	33	Austin Cindric		Ford	35	2:22'54.044	27 Laps	7 Laps	2
39	53	Ryan Eversley		Chevrolet	27	1:47'32.658	35 Laps	8 Laps
40	37	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	6	17'51.968	56 Laps	21 Laps