The NASCAR Cup Series made history on Sunday with its first international points-paying race since 1958 when it took the green flag at Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. New Zealand's Shane van Gisbergen drove away to a commanding 16.5-second win over Christopher Bell, while Chase Elliott rounded out the podium in third.
As the active leader in road course wins with seven, Elliott has not experienced the same level of success in the NextGen Car with zero wins and a five-race stretch with zero laps led. While Elliott did not leave Mexico City with the win, he drove his way up to a third-place finish during the final 32-lap green-flag run, earning his third consecutive top-five on a road course.
The race certainly featured its fair share of moments, including a rain-soaked opening stage that saw Kyle Busch lose control into Turn 1 on Lap 7 and a post-race confrontation between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar.
One of the other chaotic parts from the Cup race in Mexico City was the restarts. That was one area, in particular, that left Elliott frustrated after the 100-lap race around the 2.42-mile, 15-turn road course.
"Yeah, I mean, there was a lot going on for sure. Certainly from the restarts," Elliott said, per the Prime Video broadcast. "But once it singled out, it really became a normal road course, I thought. But the restarts were crazy. You get in those situations and it's just so tough because it's like you don't want to be the one to run in there and kind of gauge people out of the way, and as soon as you don't, you get gouged from behind.
"I don't love that, but that's kind of what we got now, these bumpers are so strong. It's kind of just chaos there for a few laps until we can get single filed out and then it gets pretty fun."
Elliott will not be the last driver aggravated with restarts
Sunday was the latest example of how durable the NextGen Car can be, especially on restarts. Despite drivers making repeated contact in the braking zones and through the slowest portions of the track, Busch was the only driver who failed to finish the race.
That's what made Elliott's drive to third that much more impressive, although he conceded that he "Didn't have anything left" and "Was kind of cooked" after settling into the long green-flag run to end the race.
With a street race at Chicago and a pair of road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen remaining in the regular season, don't expect the aggression on restarts to stop anytime soon. Tracks like Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez only add fuel to the fire with the long straightaways and slow, tight corners, giving drivers the ability to move each other out of the way without causing significant damage.
Elliott was mired in traffic for most of the race on Sunday, so a third-place finish is a positive to take from Mexico City. He may have left frustrated with the way the restarts played out, but he certainly was not the only driver irritated by the aggressiveness and will not be the last as the race for the playoffs intensifies over the summer months.