In a two-lap shootout to finish the race, Chase Elliott passed Ryan Blaney on the last lap and then beat him by 0.046 seconds to win Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
Elliott’s winning move began on the backstretch coming to the white flag when Elliott moved out of the inside lane and in front of Erik Jones.
Jones and the No. 43 then pushed Elliott forward. After the white flag, Elliott cleared Blaney on the backstretch, in almost the same spot he started his charge to the lead.
It resulted in Elliott’s series-leading fifth win of the season as Elliott is the first playoff driver to win in the first five races of the postseason.
“It was a wild last couple of laps,” Elliott told NBC Sports on the frontstretch afterwards. “I wasn’t super crazy about being on the bottom. And fortunately, I got just clear enough to slide up in front of Erik and got great shoves, obviously a Chevy partner there and just had a good run to get out front was able to you stay enough in front of Ryan here at the line to get it done.”
For Elliott, it’s his second career Cup win at Talladega after he won the spring 2019 race.
He finished ahead of Blaney, Michael McDowell, Ross Chastain and Denny Hamlin.
As for Blaney, after leading 31 laps and being one circuit of the 1.66-mile superspeedway from earning his first win of 2022, the Team Penske driver had to settle for his 10th top-five finish and his best result of the year.
“The middle, the second lane, was kind of the strongest, like definitely the second half the race and I thought about (trying to block Elliott),” Blaney said. “Just when you go into the middle, and you don’t have a Ford or teammate behind you, your chances of getting split are just so high and as much as I trust Chase I don’t trust him to take me three wide and leave me in the middle.”
Added Blaney, “Overall not a bad day. I’m probably gonna replay in my head like five different things I could have done different.”
McDowell continued to add to his career-best top 10 total for the year, earning his 12th of the season. That ties him with Hamlin, Jones, Alex Bowman and Daniel Suarez.
“You always wish you get a redo,” McDowell said. “Unfortunately in motorsports you don’t get that. Good to be challenging for wins. When you come up short, it’s disappointing, for sure. But felt like (Blaney) and I were hooked up good, had a good run. Obviously when (Hamlin) drug back off of me, that was probably my opportunity I needed to drag back off of the 12 a little bit sooner. Just kind of lost a little bit of that momentum, the energy. Just took a little bit too long to rebuild.”
Jones’ 12 top 10s are the most for the No. 43 car since Bobby Hamilton had 11 in 1996. Before that, Richard Petty last reached double digits in 1987 with 14 top 10s.
“I thought we had a good shot at the win and put ourselves in the right position on the final restart but unfortunately, the guys behind us had some issues and we didn’t get the push we needed at the end,” Jones said. “Frustrating ending for sure, but we’ll take it and move on. I’m proud of the progress this 43 team and everyone at Petty GMS has made this season. It’s fun to drive cars like this and have a shot at the win.”
The 188-lap race saw 57 lead changes among 17 drivers. Among those, Chastain and Aric Almirola ended the day tied with the most laps led at 36.
For Talladega, it was a relatively calm race with only six cautions and just one for a multi-car wreck.
Click for NASCAR Cup at Talladega race results
The first caution of the day came on Lap 8. The cause? The driver-side window of Ty Dillon’s No. 42 car had popped out as the field raced down the backstretch.
At the time, Chastain led the field over Almirola and Jones. Chastain was still the leader on the Lap 12 restart after some in the lead pack chose to pit.
The race would stay green until the multi-car wreck on Lap 24. Triggered when Harrison Burton was turned by a bad push from Ricky Stenhouse Jr., the wreck also collected Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs, Austin Cindric, Noah Gragson (driving in place of Alex Bowman), Justin Allgaier and Justin Haley.
Burton and Gibbs were eliminated from the race. It’s Gibbs’ third DNF in the last four races.
Big wreck!#NASCARPlayoffs driver Joey Logano involved in this one among others. pic.twitter.com/f4GjfMRqs4
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 2, 2022
“I haven’t seen it yet. I know (Stenhouse) hit me and as soon as he did I was crossed up and going side-to-side,” Burton said. “I don’t know what to do different. I pulled up kind of conservatively to give him time to prepare and I’m not sure why. He gave me a pretty hard shot for sure, but I don’t know if it was off line, where he was when he hit me, or if I was moving while he was moving. I haven’t seen anything yet. These things happen so fast and all of a sudden you’re sideways. You know you got hit and you don’t understand what really caused it. It’s unfortunate for us.”
Kyle Busch was first off pit road after he and many teams didn’t take tires.
Suarez briefly took the lead before Elliott passed him on the backstretch on Lap 31 with a push from Busch.
The third caution came out on Lap 45 when Corey LaJoie suffered a hard hit in Turn 1 when his right-front tire went down and his No. 7 Chevrolet shot up into the outside wall. LaJoie was eliminated from the race.
The race resumed with 11 laps left in the stage and Hamlin leading.
Hamlin and William Byron would swap the lead a couple times, but the stage win went to Blaney, who beat Hamlin and Elliott in a nearly three-wide finish after Blaney got a helpful push down the frontstretch from teammate Austin Cindric.
By the end of the first stage, there had been 27 lead changes among 12 drivers.
THAT CLOSE.
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 2, 2022
Ryan @Blaney passes Denny Hamlin to win Stage 1 at @TALLADEGA.
📺 : NBC
💻 : https://t.co/reyjZjUB4a pic.twitter.com/vdVk2Hts5u
Kyle Larson and Jones were the first off pit road under caution. The green flag waved to start Stage 2 on Lap 65. Within a few laps Blaney returned to the lead.
On Lap 72, Blaney moved high up the track in an attempt to stop a charge by Brad Keselowski. But the move failed andlost Blaney the lead to Jones. Blaney then intentionally dropped back to avoid the escalating racing among the leaders.
No shortage of action at the front of the field! (📺: NBC) pic.twitter.com/lk6qjAKLjk
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 2, 2022
Almirola would hold the lead for 25 laps until the leaders made green flag stops with 18 laps left in Stage 2.
Just before that, when the Toyota cars pit on Lap 100, Christopher Bell spun as he slowed down to enter pit road. While everyone else was taking fuel only, Bell’s team was forced to also change his tires. The mistake resulted in Bell not earning any stage points in the race.
When the pit cycle was complete Reddick was scored as the leader. Reddick and Larson would swap the lead multiple times over the last laps of the stage, but on the last lap Reddick dropped off the pace going into Turn 3 when he ran out of fuel.
Coming down the frontstretch, Elliott jumped to the outside of Larson and with drafting help from Justin Haley, beat Larson to the line.
The top 10 after two stages: Elliott, Justin Haley, Larson, Daniel Suarez, Jones, Chastain, Landon Cassill, Chris Buescher, Daniel Hemric and Chase Briscoe.
After two stages, there were 41 lead changes among 15 drivers.
Elliott was first off pit road and was the leader on the restart with 62 laps to go.
Within the first few laps, Jones, Blaney and Chastain all led. Chastain remained in the lead for 34 of the next 35 laps, with Blaney assuming the lead with 35 laps to go.
The second round of green flag pit stops began with 27 laps to go as the leaders pit. Blaney was first off after only taking fuel. The next time by, the rest of the field pit.
Larson led the second group off pit road, but Blaney and the first group were able to overtake them.
During the pit stops both Keselowski, who had been third before the cycle, and Kevin Harvick were penalized for speeding. When Keselowski served his penalty, that left Blaney leading Chastain and Jones.
The race would go caution free until six laps to go when the No. 16 of Hemric stalled and came to a stop in the last box on pit road.