Dale Earnhardt Jr says Ross Chastain has not changed as a driver, even if the way he has looked on track this season has changed. On his Dirty Mo Media podcast, Earnhardt Jr said Chastain is still the same racer and will go back to being aggressive when his car gets better.

The comments are getting attention now because Chastain is trying to stay in the playoff picture with a season that has brought one top five finish and no wins. That is a sharp contrast from the form that made him look like one of the best drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship in 2023, when he finished ninth after taking second in 2022.

Earnhardt Jr pushed back on the idea that Chastain became a different person after Darlington and Rick Hendrick getting in Ross's ear. He said it is not easy to have that kind of conversation, adding that Chastain stopped running Rick's cars, but that did not change him as a race car driver. In his view, Ross Chastain is still Ross Chastain. He's still that same guy.

The explanation for the quieter stretch is simpler, he said: Chastain has decided not to create problems for himself when his car is not good enough. That lines up with the way he has raced much of this year, spending long stretches in the middle of the pack because the car has been too slow to let him attack the front the way he usually does.

That is the friction inside the story. Chastain's reputation was built on an aggressive, risk-taking style, and he has been tied to numerous controversies before. But Earnhardt Jr's view is that the restraint is not a personality rewrite. It is a response to equipment, which means the old version could return quickly if the car improves.

For Chastain, that leaves the season hanging on a narrow question: whether better speed arrives soon enough to matter. Earnhardt Jr's answer is already clear. Wait till his car gets good again, he said, because when his cars are good, it's going to be the same overall.