INDIANAPOLIS — Chase Elliott scored his best finish since the second race of the season in Fontana. It was his best career Indianapolis Motor Speedway finish too. The runner-up though lost him 25 points in the process.

That’s why Elliott was bummed to come home .937-seconds behind Michael McDowell in the end of Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Just to be a little better through the back half over there and get off of 14 a little better just to have myself in a better spot getting into 1,” Elliott said.

“Just really appreciate the effort, man. Our Napa Chevy was really good, really good.

“Just needed just a little bit more and came up a bit short. But congrats to Michael, man. He did a good job. Ran a great race and stayed mistake free, and that’s what you’ve got to do to win.”

Elliott scored 49 points on the day, third most. 14 of them were stage points as he was 3rd and 5th respectively in them. It’s just the fact that McDowell won as to how he fell even further back on the cutline.

That’s also why Elliott was chasing McDowell so hard because second means nothing to him. He lost 25 points by finishing runner-up as he entered the day -55.

He leaves -80.

An 80-point differential stood between McDowell and Elliott over that final stint but the 2020 series champion couldn’t close it enough to take his first trip to victory lane in the last 29 races (22 starts).

“Yeah, I lost too much ground under that pit cycle and was trying to pace myself for the long haul,” Elliott continued. “It kind of had that green flag feel. I thought I did that, just needed to do a better job getting through traffic there.”

Ironically enough, in both of McDowell’s wins now, Elliott had the best view in each. He was second.

Now, he’s facing a must-win over the next two weeks. You’re not going to make the playoffs by making up 80 points in that span.

Watkins Glen serves as the most likely location.

He won two of the last four years in Watkins Glen with being runner-up (2021) and fourth (2022) in the others. Elliott didn’t race COTA this year but was fifth in Sonoma, third in Chicago and now 2nd in Indy this season.

For Daytona, Elliott was runner-up in the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400, runner-up in the 2021 Daytona 500, 8th in the 2021 ‘400 and 10th in the 2022 Daytona 500. While he won two superspeedway races last year, he was 38th, 12th and 13th this year.