Chase Elliott looks to recapture strength from early in season as NASCAR heads to Martinsville

It has not been the best few weeks for Chase Elliott, yet he is still sixth in points heading into Sunday's Cup race at Martinsville Speedway.

Of course, when your Hendrick Motorsports teammates are 1-2-3 in the season standings, sixth might not seem as good as it is.

Penalties and performance have stymied Elliott lately. He finished 18th at Homestead after a pit road penalty. He placed 10th in each of the two races before Homestead, but he didn't view those performances highly.

Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, recognizes the challenges Elliott and his team have had and doesn't express any concern.

"I feel like they came into the season with a lot of momentum as well and started strong, meaning you could just sense that they've got a lot of confidence and coming to the racetrack ready to go," Gordon said after last weekend's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"I think the last couple of weeks probably were a little bit frustrating for them. I think (Homestead) is probably going to be a little bit frustrating for them, too. But they're a really solid team. Just a lot of depth and a lot of belief in one another.

"You know, you've got to get through the rocky times. … Again, it's a high standard at Hendrick, what everybody brings, like (Kyle Larson's) team did (winning Homestead). And so a lot of times you're really measuring yourself against the best that there are out there, and a lot of times that's right in your own stable.

"So if you're not achieving what you want to achieve, then you know you've got to go to work, and you know that you're not meeting expectations. So those guys have high expectations, Alan (Gustafson), Chase. It's not unusual for them to get down a little bit on, 'Hey, this isn't good enough,' but I've seen them react really well and positively to that too."

Martinsville is a good place to go next for Elliott, who has one win in his last 76 Cup starts. He finished second in last fall's playoff race there and was third in the spring event.

Ahead of last weekend's race at Homestead, Elliott assessed his season, saying: "There's been some high spots, there's been some low spots. I thought the first three weeks, four weeks if you include the Clash in there (won by Elliott), were all really good. Had really fast cars and cars that did, truthfully, exactly what I wanted. We crashed the first three weeks of the season, so that was unfortunate.

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Phoenix (10th-place finish) or Vegas (10th) were good because they weren't. I know that and you know that. We just need to keep plugging away and try to find some good runs."

Elliott's finish at Las Vegas included a pit road speeding penalty, his second of the year. He also had a speeding penalty at Atlanta after he was involved in an incident on track.

At Homestead, Elliott was eighth entering pit road at the end of the second stage and exited seventh. NASCAR penalized him for not entering pit road single file under caution. Instead, he entered on the inside of Austin Cindric's car.

Elliott said on his team's radio to Gustafson that he got to the inside of Cindric to avoid hitting the back of Cindric's car when the field got stacked entering pit road.

"Zero advantage there," Elliott said on the radio. "I was just trying not to hit the guy."

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, explained this week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio why Elliott was penalized.

"So, if we're under green conditions, I'll use the Daytona, Talladega Superspeedway type and even at Homestead-Miami … it's live," he said. "When they are coming to pit road, they'll run as far around Turn 3 and 4 as they can at speed. So then they've got to really get slowed down to the pit road speed by the time they get to the yellow line (marking pit road entrance). So, therefore, we can see cars that will enter side-by-side under green conditions.

"Under yellow conditions … we've captured the field. We've rode under caution for at least one lap, maybe sometimes multiple laps. So everyone has been captured. They're single-file. So at that point there's really no need not to be in a single-file line when you enter pit road.

"The reason the rule is in place is safety. In the case of (Elliott) and I believe he was beside (Cindric), if you just imagine that (Cindric) is pitting in the very first pit box. If he's in line and as soon as he crosses the pit entry line, then he's going to be turning left. If there is another car, in this case it was (Elliott), if he's there, then he's just going to turn him around on pit road."