F1 ace Fernando Alonso has heaped praise on NASCAR star Ross Chastain, describing his recent remarkable wall ride as the ‘best thing in motor racing in 2022’.
Chastain became the talk of motorsport over the weekend, as his impressive move saw him gain five places in the final lap of the event in Martinsville.
The driver has received plenty of plaudits for his efforts, and has even earned the recognition of Formula 1 legend Alonso. The Spaniard took to social media to share the video, and have his say on Chastain’s legendary manoeuvre.
The 41-year-old compared the driver’s wall-ride to something you would see in a video game, whilst lauding it as the sport’s stand out moment of 2022.
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He tweeted: “This is the best thing of 2022 in motor racing! We all did this on video games with damage disable. Never thought this could become reality.”
Chastain’s title hopes looked to be all but over when competing in the season’s penultimate event in Martinsville, with the American loitering in 10th place. In an all or nothing move though, the Florida star looked to keep his dreams alive as he flew down the outside along the track wall to leave a number of his rivals in his wake.
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(Image: Getty Images)
Remarkably he flew past five cars to draw him into fifth place, which proved enough to keep Chastain in the title race. Speaking afterwards, Chastain himself likened his daring move to that of a video game, as did Alonso on Twitter.
“I played a lot of NASCAR 2005 on the GameCube with Chad [who is also a racer] growing up,” Chastain told NBC. You can get away with it [on the game] and I never knew if it would actually work [in real life].
“I did that when I was eight years old. It flashed back in my head on the white flag [last lap]. If it wrecks, OK, we don’t make it. It might not work, but I’ll try it.”
“I asked [his team] if we needed it, and we did. I couldn’t see who was leading. I just grabbed fifth gear down the back [straight] and fully committed. I hoped it didn’t catch the turn four access gate or something crazy but I was willing to do it.”
Discussing what was going through his head when he attempted the move, he added: “My brain could not comprehend, my bandwidth was shot when I entered [turn] three and I grabbed fifth gear. Everything went blurry. I couldn’t comprehend it.”
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