Chase Elliott has taken the win at the YellaWood 500 NASCAR race around Talladega Superspeedway, securing himself an automatic spot in the Playoff Round of 8.

The race was clean until the last lap battle between playoff contenders Ryan Blaney and Hendrick Motorsports’ Elliott, both pushing on from the back straight to the chequered flag with Elliott snatching the win by 0.046s.

Michael McDowell rounded out the top three and this win in Alabama was Elliott’s 18th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, which meant advancing with a guaranteed spot to the Round of 8 for the Georgia native.

“It was a wild last couple laps. I wasn’t super crazy about being on the bottom and fortunately I got just clear enough off of [Turn] 2 to slide up in front of Erik [Jones] and he gave me some great shoves, obviously a Team Chevy partner there,” said the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

“Just had a good enough run to get out front and then was able to stay far enough in front of Ryan [Blaney] at the line to get it done.

“These things are so, so hard to win, you’ve got to enjoy them and just appreciate everyone’s effort today.”

Both Stage wins were taken by moves at the tri-oval by the top two finishers, Stage 1 taken by Blaney, just 0.009 in front of Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Denny Hamlin.

Stage 2 was snatched from Kyle Larson by his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Elliott and with six laps left to the end, the Caution flag waved for Daniel Hemric’s #16 car, who stalled in pit lane and bunched up the pack for the last restart of the race, allowing Elliott to seize the victory.

This win by Elliott is the first automatic advancement of a playoff-eligible driver since the first four playoff races were won by non-playoff drivers – Erik Jones in Darlington, Bubba Wallace in Kansas and Chris Buescher at Bristol.

NASCAR will be racing next week at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval for the Bank of America ROVAL 400, the final road course event of the 2022 season.

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