Sports
Chase Elliott deletes pictures amid nonsense rumors
NASCAR welcoming celebrities to race weekends is nothing new, and Nashville Superspeedway is certainly one of the more prominent venues on the calendar which lends itself to being the “place to be” for a Cup Series race.
We see celebrities in attendance all the time, and we see drivers taking pictures with them when the opportunities present themselves. It’s not a new concept.
But a contingent of immature fans with nothing better to do took a recent meetup featuring the sport’s most popular driver and a popular gymnast way too far.
NASCAR welcomed LSU and former U.S. national team gymnast Olivia Dunne, the highest-valued women’s college athlete of 2022, to the four-turn, 1.33-mile (2.140-kilometer) Lebanon, Tennessee oval for Sunday evening’s Ally 400.
Before the race, Elliott posted pictures with himself and Dunne, and NASCAR did the same. It is nothing out of the ordinary, and it happens all the time.
Unfortunately, some fans didn’t see it that way, and a couple simple photographs led to rumors of the two athletes dating, and from there, the speculation spiraled out of control.
The following day, Elliott’s post had been deleted.
NASCAR’s post with the two is still up.
The fact that a celebrity can’t attend a NASCAR race and have their picture taken with a NASCAR driver without Twitter melting down and going into a dating frenzy just because of who that celebrity happens to be (Joe Burrow drew the same reaction, by the way) is nothing shy of pathetic.
At the end of the day, these are still human beings. They are not commodities whose only purposes in life are to drive ticket sales and television ratings during competition and to be used to manipulate headlines for fans to obsess over.
While you may not be a fan, they deserve a certain level of courtesy and respect. It doesn’t matter how much money they make.
And it’s not just social media. Google the two names together and you have all kind of dating speculation articles at a variety of different websites, many of which, quite frankly, don’t give a rat’s rear end about NASCAR (or Chase Elliott) on any other day of the week.
Did yall really make the poor kid delete this tweet? Why can't yall be normal on the internet for 5 damn seconds 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/GDq5vgclQY
— SteelHorseLive ⛧🏁 (@SteelHorseLive) June 26, 2023
One such line reads “Chase Elliott and Olivia Dunne are hot and heavy”. Really?
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just like any other situation of a celebrity attending a NASCAR race and having their picture taken with a NASCAR driver. But why show respect when you can spread rumors about someone’s personal life to stir the pot?
Welcome to the track, @livvydunne! pic.twitter.com/YPfS8AJpDd
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 25, 2023
The age-old, yet simple, down-to-earth question needs to be asked.
““Now, I mean, isn’t it possible for one person to be nice to another without somebody saying, ‘guess who’s getting married!’?”
Andy Griffith simply never gets old.
In the Twitter/social media era, the answer is no. Some people have nothing better to do than to sit around making things up about peoples’ personal lives, with zero regard for how that might affect anybody else.
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Mick Schumacher, the son of seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher, is in the running for a potential return to F1. The young racer has emerged as a late contender for a seat at Kick Sauber, which will become Audi in 2026. Led by Mattia Binotto, the team announced Mick as a candidate for their drivers’ lineup in 2025.
Speaking in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Binotto dived into details about the young driver. “We are definitely evaluating him [Mick Schumacher],” he said.
The statement is being seen as the 25-year-old’s last chance to return to the sport.
Mick has previous association with Mattia Binotto through the Ferrari Driver Academy.
Speaking about their connection, Binotto added, “I met him and spoke to him. I have known him for a long time, having been part of the Ferrari Driver Academy. I know his strengths and advantages. He is one of the names we have in mind.”
Mick, who drove for Haas during his last stint in Formula 1, was a reserve for Mercedes in the last two seasons. The driver was also in contention for a seat at Alpine after Esteban Ocon left the team for Haas. He even raced for the French manufacturer in the World Endurance Championship. However, the squad decided to go with rookie driver Jack Doohan, instead.
Audi Chief Binotto now has the young racer on the radar as he hopes to bring him back to the sport.
He discussed how the team was in no rush to make a hasty decision, especially now that most teams have already decided their line-ups. “There are two essential options: on the one hand, experience to set us on the growth path. On the other is a young, talented driver who can accompany us on the path to the top,” Binotto said.
With Sauber preparing for a full acquisition by Audi in 2026, the German carmaker looks focused on assembling a competitive team. Should Mick join Sauber, he would team up with Nico Hulkenberg, who leaves Haas at the end of the 2024 season. The 37-year-old German racer is taking one of the two seats next year.
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Carlos Sainz teased one day revealing his true thoughts on Mattia Binotto claiming he would not have signed Lewis Hamilton if still Ferrari boss.
Ahead of the F1 2024 campaign, Hamilton activated an exit clause in his Mercedes contract to engineer a blockbuster F1 2025 move to Ferrari, signing a multi-year deal. That came at the expense of Sainz, who has since agreed terms with Williams.
Carlos Sainz reacts after Binotto’s Lewis Hamilton Ferrari bombshell
At Ferrari, Hamilton reunites with his former junior series boss Fred Vasseur, who took over the reins at Maranello in 2023, after the exit of former team principal Mattia Binotto.
And Binotto has confirmed that if he were still calling the shots, Hamilton would not have got his Ferrari dream move.
Asked by Corriere della Sera if he would have signed Hamilton to Ferrari, Binotto replied: “No. But he did very well to go to Ferrari, I agree with his decision.”
Explaining his reasoning, Binotto said that Hamilton’s future Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc – a part of their line-up since 2019 and a Ferrari Driver Academy graduate – should be their centrepiece for an F1 title challenge.
“Because Ferrari had set their sights on other drivers. And if the talent is Leclerc, he is the one who somehow I think should be taken to the target,” claimed Binotto.
And Sainz, speaking at the 2024 Marca Sports Weekend, was asked for his reaction to that.
“Binotto says he wouldn’t have signed Lewis?” Sainz replied.
Gathering up his thoughts, Sainz teased that he would one day share them, but this was not the time.
“I don’t get involved in that,” he said, “I’ll keep my opinion to myself and I’ll tell you my opinion over dinner one day.”
As for the Hamilton and Leclerc partnership, Sainz believes it will be a successful one for Ferrari.
“He and Leclerc are two great drivers, I’m sure they’ll have a good time,” he said.
Sainz will be joining a Williams team striving to work its way up the F1 pecking order, with F1 2026 – the year that new chassis and power unit regulations arrive – very much the goal in mind rather than next season.
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Amidst the chaos in the Cup Series playoffs, one driver has been consistently getting the results while flying under the radar. Christopher Bell has been somewhat of a dark horse in the ongoing campaign, even though he’s currently second in the championship, having secured three wins in the season so far. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has shown great consistency over the last few weeks, finishing no lower than seventh in the last four races.
Despite the attention going towards the traditional favorites such as Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin, a prominent NASCAR Insider isn’t ruling out Christopher Bell as a genuine title contender if he does make it to Phoenix Raceway later this year.
He might not be in the headlines, but Christopher Bell has every reason to be optimistic about his championship hopes going into the last four races of the season. The 29-year-old has shown tremendous consistency over the last few months, having finished inside the top ten in 9 out of the last 11 races. As a result, the No. 20 Toyota Camry driver finds himself just behind Kyle Larson in the standings going into the Round of Eight. Even though Victory Lane has eluded the Oklahoma native, Bell is playing the long game, hoping to remain in contention, going into the Championship 4 race.
Highlighting his expectations from Christopher Bell, NBC Sports play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffey said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast, “I don’t think enough people give enough credit to Christopher Bell. To me, he’s that quiet achiever and I love the fact that how honest he was at Kansas where he made the mistake at the end of Stage 1 and Stage 2 when he hit the wall, said that’s totally on me. I just think he’s the only guy who’s made the Championship 4 the last two years in succession, and I just think the time is now for him.
