Kevin Harvick sends strong warning to Chase Elliott following Dover NASCAR result

Chase Elliott seemed ready to take the bull by the horns and dominate on his way to Victory Lane at Dover this past weekend. However, a late mishap on pit road ruined that dream for the Hendrick Motorsports wheelman.

While he still was able to finish P6, it’s a stark contract from win No. 2 of the year. Elliott had a shot, but it wasn’t meant to be, but there’s some positives to be gleaned from the No. 9 Chevrolet team’s trip to Delaware.

Kevin Harvick tried to make sense of it all on the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour. According to the former champion, Elliott’s biggest problem at the moment pertains to qualifying, and if he can perform better the day before the race, then he’ll have many more chances at wins in 2025.

“The pit crew had a mishap, and it costed him the win, or a shot at the win. He had control of the race at that point. But the one thing that I want to point out, Chase Elliott always talks about qualifying. He needs to qualify better,” Harvick explained. “This race, qualifying rained out. He had the track position to start, and it put him in a position to dominate the race. They’ve got to figure out how to qualify better. They score a lot of points. They’re grinders. They overcome things like this. This shows you what would happen if they would qualify better.

“They’ve got the cars and capabilities from behind the steering wheel to dominate races, which is what we’ve been talking about him not being able to do. A lot of that is a result of qualifying. Saturdays are setting the tone for the No. 9 car to not be able to dominate. Now, we know that if Chase Elliott can qualify well, he can dominate. We saw it here at Dover, with the car and the team that he has.”

Alas, it’s tough to argue with Harvick’s logic. Once Elliott got some track position, he was almost unbeatable. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for the sport’s most popular driver this past weekend, but they might’ve found their secret to success in Dover.

Moving forward, Chase Elliott and company will be looking to implement their improved strategy, beginning with this weekend’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He’s been good, but not great at the Brickyard. The Hendrick Motorsports star finished P10 last season, and his best showing in seven tries is P9.