Chase Elliott on his run at the Toyota Owners 400

Chase Elliott talks with reporters after his 16th-place run at the NASCAR Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway on Sunday.

CHASE ELLIOTT: Overall I felt like we had a really solid day.  Really the whole weekend for us here on the Sprint Cup side was solid.  I thought we had a good car throughout practice, was able to run well in race trim, and our real struggle was trying to go fast for qualifying.  Guys made good adjustments for qualifying to get us in the show, and our car today had great long‑run speed.  Unfortunately these races never ran to the long run.  It’s always going to be a short run to the finish, and I didn’t tell them to do the right things for that last stop to run a short run.
Lesson learned, and we’ll try to get better for the next one.

Q.  When you look back at just the whole weekend compared to Martinsville, it’s like night and day.  What are some things you think contributed to that difference this weekend?
CHASE ELLIOTT:  I have no idea.  I wish I had an answer for you.  I don’t really know.  You know, like I said, I felt like at Martinsville, too, we had a good car.  I didn’t do my job like I needed to there, and got us in a wreck 60 laps into the race, and that’s not the thing to do.
Fortunately we were able to run laps today, able to stay on the lead lap and battle really hard, especially towards the end of those long runs, and to race with some good cars.  I think that’s something our team should be proud of.

Q.  Similar to what I was going to ask, but one thing I would like for you to address is how has your expectations in this series differed from where you are now?  Have you realized that the expectations that you have are meeting what your goals have been?
CHASE ELLIOTT:  This weekend I felt like we were‑‑ we would have loved to just stay on the lea, run all the laps and just put together a solid race and minimize our mistakes, and I felt like we did that today and I think that’s something to be proud of.  You always get greedy and want more, and we certainly had a great car really today, and I thought we were battling right there on the edge of that top 10 there at points, and we had great speed, as I said, on the longer runs.
Expectations are we still just want to put together solid races and try and stay on the lead lap of those things.  You try to race with some competitive cars, and I thought we did that today.

Q.  Chase, just talk a little bit about the learning curve coming in, this being your second Sprint Cup race, the transition from Nationwide to Sprint Cup thus far.
CHASE ELLIOTT:  The biggest difference is just the level of competition in these cars.  You know, the cars definitely drive differently.  You’re going faster I think is the most simplistic way to put it, and that requires different setup packages.  These guys have done a good job of adapting to the changes over the off‑season they made to the rules and whatnot there.  It’s definitely a little bit different, but at the end of the day the competition is just so much higher over here.  You know, it makes it tough.

Q.  Chase, no matter how old a driver is, how many years he’s had in this sport, no matter what, most of them walk out of every single race and say I learned something.  What do you think is the greatest thing you learned today in this event?
CHASE ELLIOTT:  Well, lots of things.  The big deal is you definitely, as you run, at the end of these things they’re always going to come down to a short run.  As I said, our car was pretty good late into a run, and like I said, they never come down to short runs, so you’re going to have to get going for a short run if you have to and be willing to know what your car needs to tell the guys to be able to make the right adjustments to be able to do that.  I think that was the biggest mistake I made today was just not making the right adjustments or not giving the right information to try to go fast on a short run.

Q.  This was your much busier weekend with doing double duty.  I just wondered how it felt doing all of it this weekend.
CHASE ELLIOTT:  Felt great.  I wish we could do it every way.  Keeps me busy.  A lot less sitting around, which I like.