Ford Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Clash at Daytona (Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL)
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Ford Finishing Order:
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – Ryan Blaney
8th – Aric Almirola
9th – Ryan Newman
10th – Daniel Suarez
12th – Kevin Harvick
13th – Paul Menard
16th – Clint Bowyer
18th – Brad Keselowski
PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Mustang – YOU LED THE MOST LAPS EVER IN THE CLASH. WHAT HAPPENED? “I didn’t know that. That’s something for the history books, I guess. Unfortunately, we just got turned there. I didn’t really know what happened until I saw a replay. I felt like it was aggressive side-drafting. I got turned to the inside and hooked to the right and all hell broke loose.”
DO YOU FEEL PEOPLE WERE GETTING MORE AGGRESSIVE KNOWING WEATHER WAS COMING? “Oh yeah, for sure. It was a pretty tame race up until that point. We knew that last restart was basically a new race – a little dash for cash to the end. It was definitely expected. I’m surprised we actually got single-file up top again after that last restart, but I knew something like that was gonna happen. It was just a matter of time.”
RYAN NEWMAN, No. 6 Wyndham Rewards Ford Mustang – “Our Ford was pretty tore up, but I would have rather gone back green and had a shot at passing the 8 than where I was there when that melee happened on the back straightaway. We learned a few things today. Number one, watch the radar. Number two, there’s gonna be a crash, and, number three, we’ve got to work on our car and make it just a little bit better for just raw speed and some driveability. It looked like it was pretty much follow the leader. Hopefully, the more cars that get on the race track that will change and make the racing a little bit more exciting.”
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Busch Beer Car2Can Ford Mustang – “It was an adventurous day. We got hung out in the beginning and went to the back and tried to make something happen. Everybody was in a single-file line and didn’t really want to race much. We had ourselves positioned in the outside line headed in the right direction and they all crashed when they decided to start racing for the first time.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang – “We worked our way up into maybe the fourth spot when they started crashing in front of us. I’m proud that we were able to make the bottom work at least a little bit, but it’s just tough sledding down there. If you can get a few cars to commit with you, you can make it happen. It shows that we’ve got speed in our race cars. That’s a great thing, and then after that it’s a matter of getting people to work with you, which we did. They were our teammates, but I think we showed that we’ve got plenty of speed, which will help us in the 500.”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THIS PARTICULAR RACE? WHAT DID IT TELL YOU? “Discipline, for sure. Everyone was very discipline to run the top, but I also felt like when you can get a few cars to really commit and you can work the bottom lane the way you’re supposed to, I feel like you can move up some and that’s what we were able to do. We had the Penske Fords and a couple other Fords down there with us as well and we were able to move fast, so I think that’s a good sign for what the 500 brings for our cars. I feel like we’ve got fast cars that can commit to each other and we can draw to the front from the bottom lane. I didn’t see many other cars be able to do that, so that was good.”
JOEY LOGANO CONTINUED — DID YOU FEEL LIKE THAT LAST RESTART WAS IT AND EVERYBODY WAS GOING TO GO FOR IT? “Yeah, definitely. I asked my crew chief, Todd, I said, ‘How many laps do I have here?’ And he’s like, ‘Single digits.’ So at that point you know you’re racing nine, eight, seven, something like that to go. You try to push as hard as you can and then when you get single-file up there it’s kind of like, ‘OK, when do I go down there? Do I go to the bottom and try to make it work?’ I’ve got to give myself enough time to do it, but I don’t want to go too early and if it doesn’t work I go from sixth to 20th, but, at the same time, does it really make a difference in this race? It’s win or nothing, so I feel like we maximized our finish from where we were after we had a couple bottom restarts and we put four tires on and lost a lot of track position there. We were able to scratch and claw our way up there on that restart from 12th to third, so I’m proud of that.”
DID YOU SEE JIMMIE’S MOVE? “I saw a video after. I didn’t see it before the replay. From my view, it’s just cars crashing and trying to avoid it, but it just looked like he was trying to side draft Paul. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but he definitely dumped him.”
DANIEL SUAREZ, No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – “The car is good. Our Mustang was very, very fast, so I’m pleased. We had a lot of good speed, but just got caught up in something with that wreck right there at the end, but the car was pretty fast. That’s what I’m going to keep from today’s race is the car had pretty good speed and was handling pretty good as well. I was able to make good, aggressive moves, but we just have to make sure that we are there at the end to be able to be contending for the 500.”
