Chase Elliott branded 'mediocre' in brutal criticism of NASCAR star

NASCAR star Chase Elliott and his season have been slammed as 'mediocre' by a Cup Series veteran.

Last weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, Elliott finished sixth place overall, and also collected plenty of stage points along the way with a win in stage one and a fourth-place finish in stage two.

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As a result, Elliott took the lead in the regular season Cup Series standings, usurping teammate William Byron, who had previously held the top spot for a significant length of time.

However, former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty is not impressed by the Hendrick Motorsports star, branding Elliott's season as mediocre in his latest criticism of the driver.

"He's been incredibly consistent, mostly mediocre consistent, which has led him to lead the championship," Petty said on PRN.

"And that's all you can say about it, is he has run in the top five or top ten, and top 15 or so, but he's just there, he's vanilla, he's right there in the middle. He's not done anything special to lead the points."

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Chase Elliott criticised again

This is not the first time this season that Elliott has come in for criticism from Petty, with the former Cup Series racer also having slammed the No. 9 driver ahead of last month's race at Atlanta.

On that occasion, Petty called for Elliott to step up, criticising him for not being the best driver in his team and questioning if we had seen the best of the Hendrick Motorsports driver's career already, despite him being just 29 years old.

Elliott did not directly respond to Petty's critique, but he did offer the perfect response on track in the following days, going on to take his first win of the season the following weekend and lock himself into the playoffs.

Elliott now heads to Indianapolis as the regular season points leader and on a strong run of form that has seen him finish inside the top six on five of the last six races.

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