Ford Performance NASCAR Notes and Quotes
Axalta 400 – Pocono Raceway
Friday, June 3, 2016
It will be an all-Ford front row for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Axalta 400 at Pocono Raceway after Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano qualified in the top two spots Friday afternoon. Keselowski bested Logano on his final qualifying lap of the third round to claim the pole.
FORD QUALIFYING ORDER
1st Brad Keselowski
2nd Joey Logano
14th Ryan Blaney
15th Greg Biffle
16th Aric Almirola
18th Chris Buescher
24th Trevor Bayne
25th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
30th Brian Scott
31st Landon Cassill
39th Jeb Burton
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion – Qualified 14th
“I just got tighter in that second round. We went the same time but we were just tighter. That was unfortunate. I thought we made good gains from the first run to the second run in the first round. It just wasn’t where we needed it in the second round. The guys did a great job for only having one lap of practice. They did really good at getting the car better and bearing with me. I still have a lot of work to do here. That is something I need to work on but hopefully, we get some practice tomorrow and we will be able to do that.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – Qualified 2nd
“It is interesting, I think the tires are actually getting better every run. The will and the want to go faster I think rose as well. Congratulations to the 2 car. It kind of stings for us. The last two weeks we have won the first two rounds and come in second in the third round. It is a bummer for us but both Team Penske cars are fast and that is pretty cool when we start the race on Sunday. We have a good starting spot and it is a long race so we will be just fine.”
I AM GUESSING YOU ARE DISAPPOINTED WITH SECOND. “Yeah, we were so close. The last two weeks we have been the fastest car in the first two rounds and given it up in the third. You want to get those poles. The pole means a lot and it is cool to rack up that stat but overall both Team Penske Fusions are up front and that says a lot about where our organization is right now. Man, I just wanted to get the pole. It stings but it’s cool we are up front.”
DID YOU LEAVE ANYTHING OUT THERE? “I feel like my two and three were really good. My turn one I hit the nose a little bit and lost the bottom of the race track and gave up every bit of it down there that I needed. That is the worst part about it.”
JOEY LOGANO POST-QUALIFYING PRESS CONFERENCE
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT YOUR RUN OUT THERE TODAY. “It was very similar to last week. We won the first two rounds and came in second in the last one. That one stings a little bit. I really wanted to get the pole and overall we are mad about second so that is a good day. That is a good thing when you are mad about second. It means your organization and team is where it needs to be. Congratulations to Brad. They picked up a lot of speed throughout the rounds and that is good for them. A Team Penske front row is special. I also heard all the Team Penske Indy cars qualified 1-2-3 up at Belle Isle as well. That is pretty cool to show where this team is at right now. I am excited about that and the race on Sunday. This has been a good race track for us in the past and we possibly could have won the race here the last time we were here if we had a little bit more fuel. I am excited every time I come to Pocono.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN TURN 1 ON THAT FINAL LAP AND DID IT CONCERN YOU WHEN YOU SAW RAIN DROPS ON THAT LAST LAP? “It didn’t concern me but I was hoping it would concern NASCAR before Brad crossed the line. It wasn’t raining hard enough for me to call it quits but I am usually the last guy to come off the track when it is raining. I don’t know if that is guts or lack of brains. Whatever it is, it doesn’t bother me much. Turn one, I went down in there and you are trying to pick up a little bit more, which we all did and just hit the track a little bit with the splitter and ended up running a lane up all the way through that corner. I know that is every bit of a tenth. I am sure when I compare our laps on the data together with Brad I am sure that is where it all is. I felt like my two and three were really good and thought we made up something but I am surprised it was even as fast as it was.”
YOU POSTED A PICTURE YESTERDAY OF YOU DRIVING TINY LUND’S 21 CAR. WHAT IS THE STORY THERE? “That was in Fontana earlier this year. I got to do a little ride swap with Jay Leno’s Garage, the TV show, which was out there. We did a new school versus old school race cars and it was really fun to drive. It is crazy because I was driving it and Leonard Wood was there and there is a chain that goes from one of the bars inside the car to the right front firewall and I asked him what it was for. He said, ‘Give it a pull.’ It was a trap door that opens up and looks at the right front tire. When you see the cords on the right front you come in and pit. It was a lot simpler back then. I immediately went back to Todd and told him I need a trap door on my firewall. He laughed at me.”
WITH MORE RAIN IN THE FORECAST FOR SUNDAY, HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOUR PREPARATION AND YOUR MINDSET THROUGH THE REST OF THE WEEKEND? “Well, unfortunately, we have gotten pretty good at dealing with it lately. There has been plenty of weather in the forecast at our races lately. We just get used to it. It doesn’t really affect you much. I am a routine person when I get ready for a race but for the most part, it doesn’t bother me a whole bunch.”
YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRACK, HOW IT FEELS COMPARED TO OTHER YEARS OR ANY NEW NUANCE? “Just like every year we come back here the track gets a little wider and you can tell it is a little wider than what it was and there is a lot of rubber laid down already. The bumps are coming back in turn two a little bit. Not as bad as it was last year when it was a jump but right now it is just a little bump. It is kind of typical Pocono after it goes through a winter I think. It creates a few more bumps which is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR WHEN YOU DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH FUEL WHEN YOU COME BACK HERE THIS YEAR? “I think you try to look at the positives of it. We had a great car. A car that was capable of winning. A lot of times you win some and you lose some that way. We left here and won the next race at Watkins Glen by fuel mileage. It goes back and forth. You can’t get too mad about that. It just happens. The positive is we have been fast the last few times we have been here and we continued that success today in qualifying.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED –
CAN YOU LOOK AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK AT MICHIGAN WITH THE NEWER DOWNFORCE PACKAGE AND HOW THAT MAY BE? “I think everyone is really excited about it. I think it is a good thing. Michigan recently, really since the repave, has been maybe a two-lane race track at times mainly because you are just wide open. You are barely lifting at all. You are in the gas so much that when you take that much downforce off one of these cars we are going to be hauling the mail on the straightaway with no drag. What I hear from the test from other drivers is they were off the gas a lot and lifting and that is a great thing. It will widen the track out and we have seen that this year, it widens the track out because the cars don’t handle as well. That is a good thing. It is old Michigan before they repaved it and we used to run up against the wall. I don’t know if we will go that high but it will go in that direction some. It is all good things and I am excited about how it will be when we get there. There will be a lot of unknowns but I think we have shown that these teams really don’t need much practice to be pretty good these days. The simulation tools and way they unload has been pretty impressive with these crazy rule changes they are able to figure out and be in the ballpark when they unload.”
YOU HAD SOME XFINITY PRACTICE YESTERDAY, DID YOUR CAR GET BETTER YESTERDAY AND DO YOU FEEL YOUR EXPERIENCE AND SUCCESS AT POCONO WILL BE AN ADVANTAGE TOMORROW? “Yeah, I think my experience should help but there is a lot of Cup guys in that race that have the experience that I’ve got. I think we went from being a second off to being a half-second off the 18 so we are getting closer. It is still a long way to go. He is a rocket ship out there and we are trying to figure out what we need to do to our Mustang to get a little faster. Hopefully, we can make some changes overnight and catch up some.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI POLE WINNER PRESS CONFERENCE
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – TELL US ABOUT YOUR QUALIFYING. “Yeah, it was a really solid effort for Team Penske to get 1-2. That is really hard to do, I can tell you that. We had great speed obviously today. I wasn’t really sure what to expect with the rain and all the other variables that were kind of thrown at us with low practice. We thought we would be okay and quite honestly we tested here and we weren’t very good and we were just kind of not really sure what to expect. We got that half a lap of practice in and we weren’t all that good there either but for some reason here in the qualifying session the team put things together and worked on it and found some speed and dialed on it each round and we got faster each round. That is why we are up here today. It was a team effort. I am really proud of the group with the Miller Lite Ford running up front and getting the pole is great but we want to be up there on Sunday as well. We will enjoy this moment and then get back to work and try to make it stay up there Sunday.”
YOU SAID ON TV THAT JOEY HELPED YOU WITH SOMETHING HERE AT THE TRACK. I WAS WONDERING WHAT THAT IS. “You know I can’t tell you that, Lee. He did tell me a couple of good restaurants to eat at and that always puts me in a good mood. Food makes me happy. Good food, good company, good beer. There is a really cool go-kart track down the road too.”
HE SAID THE ONE GOOD THING ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP IS THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO POINT OUT WEAKNESSES AT TRACKS WITH EACH OTHER AND MAKE EACH OTHER BETTER. “Yeah, I don’t know exactly what the question is there but I am really happy with the relationship Joey and I have, not just as a team but as a team or teams at Penske. I think it is very strong. I think we are in a great position for our long-term futures as both drivers, teams, companies, all of the above. That is bound to pay off with results. We just have an incredible opportunity right now with our group to race as elite competitors for a long time. It is up to us to make that happen.”
THE LAST NINE TIMES YOU’VE WON A POLE, YOU’VE FINISHED FOURTH OR BETTER WITH FOUR WINS. WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU GUYS THAT THE SPEED TRANSLATES TO THE RACE? “I don’t think of us as a team that is a qualifying focused team. In general, we work on things that pay off in the race and not qualifying. So when we have speed in qualifying it is usually a sign of how strong we are in race trim. Of course, I can’t confirm that today because I didn’t get any race trim practice but I would say that is some of our tendency.”
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU LEARNED TODAY THAT CAN TRANSLATE TO SUNDAY? “No, we didn’t get enough to make much of today. We just happened to be fast in qualifying trim. Sorry.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU LOOK AT THE OTHER SERIES WITH THE TEAM PENSKE CARS QUALIFYING 1-2-3 IN INDY CAR? “Yeah, the Indy Car side always sets the bar really high. That is not a bad thing. That is part of having a great effort with great people, a great group. Our opportunity to be just as successful is in front of us. I look at their side and they are doing a tremendous job the last few years of winning races and being consistent front runners and we are trying to do the same.”
BASED ON THE PROGRESSION THROUGH QUALIFYING, HOW CONFIDENT WERE YOU THAT YOU WOULD BE ON POLE? “I felt really good when we ran the first round and I was third and knew I had a little more speed left. We ran the second round and I didn’t feel I had anything left and was still third. I got down into turn one on my last run there and it kind of bottomed out and shot up the hill a little and I wasn’t very confident at all. I have learned over time that these things have a way of working themselves out when they are meant to be and I guess today was meant to be.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS TRACK AND FACILITY AND HAS YOUR OPINION OF IT CHANGED SINCE YOU STARTED RACING HERE? “Well, my opinion on it has definitely changed dramatically. The first time I came here I think was 1993 or 94 and I can tell you it looks a lot different now than it did then. But when I first came here as a race car driver in 2010 it looked nothing different from when I came here. I think over the last probably four or five years, specifically maybe the last three, I think it has seen a lot of upgrades that make me feel better about coming here specific to the safer barriers and things of that nature. Those have been huge upgrades. I think this market being not New York City but one of the closest tracks we have to there is really important for us. I think shortening the races from 500 miles to 400 miles was a good thing as well. I look at this track and I think a lot of it, like Michigan, in the sense of distance from city and the campgrounds and infield and a bit of the tradition of coming here that dates back to the 60’s and 70’s and I think it is one of those tracks that is maybe not Daytona or Charlotte but in that kind of second group of tracks that you think of when you think of NASCAR.”
A COUPLE YEARS AGO YOU HAD THE PROBLEM WITH DEBRIS WHICH COST YOU A WIN HERE. IS THAT SOMETHING YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU COME HERE? DO YOU FEEL THE TRACK MAYBE OWES YOU SOMETHING? “Well, when I won here in 2011 I felt I probably wasn’t the best car. I think it all evens out because I was probably the best car that other time and finished second. You don’t always win the ones you should and sometimes you win the ones you probably shouldn’t. You just hope that over time it all evens out. I have won a handful of races that I probably didn’t deserve to win and vice versa. That is the way it goes and you try to take it as they come. As long as they come fairly.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO SONOMA, HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT STRATEGY FOR THAT RACE AT ALL? “It is definitely a wild car race. I think the strategy for that track is so tough. Last year I think Jimmie Johnson was the best car and a yellow comes out with a dozen or so laps to go and it all depended on how many cars pitted behind him and they all did and he was a sitting duck. There are some things you can’t control in the sport and that is the perfect example of that. Sonoma lends itself to more variables than most places.”
