DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – After a year in which he scored his first three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series wins and contended to make the final four in the playoffs, Chase Elliott is understandably heading into the new season with plenty of confidence.

However, Elliott is being careful not to carry too much optimism going into a new era of Cup Series racing, with a new rules package set to test drivers and teams throughout the upcoming campaign.

“I think it’s nice to have won a couple races, but I’m not sure how much of that you can really ride into the next year,” Elliott said this week during a national media teleconference. “I think it’s kind of a fresh start in a lot of ways. Definitely, there was nothing negative about the wins and things, but I obviously wish we could have finished a little stronger those last handful of races last season.

“It’s just hard to piggy-back off of a win and the month of … September or October and then continue that in the end of February, but we’ll try our best and try to get rolling.”

Elliott enters his fourth full season at NASCAR’s top level seeking both his first championship and a stronger start to the year than what he and the rest of Hendrick Motorsports had last season.

The Dawsonville, Ga., native only had five top-10 finishes in the first 10 races of 2018, a number he certainly wants to improve upon while still not looking too far into his future.

“Well, the first two seasons … I had some ups and downs, I guess, and obviously last year was the best of the three,” Elliott recalled. “It’s kind of hard to believe that this will be year four. The time has gone by really fast.

“I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow though, much less in four years, so we’ll cross the bridge of the future as it approaches.”

Elliott has developed a strong driver-crew chief relationship with Alan Gustafson since stepping up to the Cup level in 2016, something he’s looking forward to continuing to grow this year.

“I have a lot of confidence in him, and it’s nice to know that it’s mutual from his end,” Elliott noted. “I think that goes a long way. Our relationship really has been pretty simple. As I’ve told a lot of people, I kind of let his do his thing and he lets me do mine, and we really just go about our business that way.

“Our friendship has grown, I think, over the past couple years. We’re by no means best friends, though,” continued Elliott. “I think he would tell you the same thing. But we work well together, and I think that we enjoy the competition aspect at a similar pace. … We keep things very simple or as simple as we possibly can, and we believe in our process of how we prepare for races. I look forward to doing it some more with him this year.”

Elliott and many of his Cup Series peers will get their season underway on Feb. 10 with the Advance Auto Parts Clash at Daytona, the annual season-opening exhibition event for the previous season’s pole winners and playoff drivers, among others.

While it’s not a full-distance event like the Daytona 500, Elliott still views the race as a good launching point for his No. 24 team.

“It’s definitely a good tune-up, especially for the guys that didn’t get selected to test throughout the off-season,” Elliott noted. “For me, I haven’t been back in the car since Homestead. It will be nice to get in a race and make sure everything looks right and feels right, and those cars are really similar to one another usually from the Clash to the (Daytona) 500.  I’m sure there’s things we can learn.

“Obviously the distance is much shorter, but car-wise it will be a good start and a good look at things.”