What’s Happening?

When NASCAR fans look at the Playoff cutline, a surprising name and number sits squarely on the bubble: Ross Chastain is only 27 points above the cutline. Chastain and Trackouse have not enjoyed as much success this season as they have in years past, so what’s going on at Trackhouse and with Ross Chastain?

• Ross Chastain finally settled into the NASCAR ranks in 2022 when he joined Trackhouse. That year, he and the team took NASCAR by storm, as Chastian won two races and made the Championship 4 while teammate Daniel Suarez finished ninth in the standings after winning his first career race.
• However, things fell off slightly in the following years. In 2023, Suarez failed to make the Playoffs with no wins, and Chastain did not return to the Championship 4 despite winning two races. Fast-forward to 2024, one race from the Olympic break. Chastain sits on the Playoff bubble, and Suarez, while in the Playoffs via a win, is still well behind.
• Trackhouse is doing this all while continuing to invest in other areas. With so much going on, could that play a role in Trackhouse’s struggles in 2024?

How Bad Is It Really?

Looking at Ross Chastain specifically, he has not fallen off that much this season, but his lack of a win makes his Playoff scenario uncertain. Here are his career stats at Trackhouse for 2022 (Top Row), 2023 (Middle Row), and what he is on pace to do in 2024 (Bottom Row) should he keep his current season pace up.

What stands out here is that Chastain is not running up front nearly as much as he used to. He still has a similar average finish but is well off the pace in top-fives and wins.

That’s been very apparent, particularly after the early portion of the season. Chastain performed quite well over the season’s first six races (Top row), but he’s fallen off significantly over the last 15 (Bottom Row).

Simply put, Chastain is spending more time racing in the middle of the pack between 10th and 20th, and he is rarely a threat to win. That’s not just a Chastain issue either, as Daniel Suarez’s only win of the season came by literal inches at Atlanta, a race he never led until the very late stages. If Suarez had not won that race at Atlanta, he would have been more than one race worth of points out of the playoffs, and Trackhouse could be in danger of missing the playoffs entirely.

Suarez has also fallen off since Trackhouse’s peak in 2022. Here are Suarez’s projections for 2022 (Top row), 2023 (Middle Row), and projections for 2024 (Bottom Row) over the same timeline we gave to Chastain.

Suarez has shown some improvement from 2023, but not a drastic one. Like Chastain, Suarez does not compete for wins every week.

Trackhouse as a whole has not been able to recapture that magic of 2022. What happened?

What Is Wrong?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s gone wrong with Trackhouse. They are a “Tier One” Chevrolet team, so they have the necessary resources to be a top team.

It’s hard to shove the blame all on the drivers, either. Chastain made a Championship 4 in 2022 and won two races in 2023. Sure, Suarez hasn’t performed to Chastain’s level, but at his best, Suarez was a top-10 Cup Series driver.

One thing to look at is Trackhouse as a whole. It is an organization that has grown incredibly quickly over the years.

The team started a single-car Cup Series operation in 2021 before buying out Chip Ganassi Racing and expanding to two cars in 2022. Since then, Trackhouse has opened a Moto GP team and signed three NASCAR development drivers: Zane Smith, Shane Van Gisbergen, and Connor Zilisch. However, none of these drivers currently race under the Trackhouse banner.

Did Trackhouse expand too much, too quickly? We’ve potentially seen that already in NASCAR with Spire Motorsports. A team that expanded significantly in the off-season but hasn’t found much success in 2024.

It’s also possible that Trackhouse has fallen behind as the Next-Gen era has gone on. Look at the 2024 season so far, where the top teams for each manufacturer, Hendrick Motorsports for Chevrolet, Joe Gibbs Racing for Toyota, and Team Penske for Ford, have all combined to win 18 of the first 21 races of 2024 (86%), with the only exceptions being Suarez at Atlanta, Tyler Reddick at Talladega, and Brad Keselowski at Darlington. Compare that to 2022, when those three teams combined to win only 22 of 36 races (61%).

The top teams are starting to separate themselves from the others. This explains why teams like Richard Childress Racing and Trackhouse, which had big years in 2022, are struggling in 2024.

Trackhouse and Ross Chastain need to get things turned around, or Chastain could be on the outside looking in at the Playoffs.

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