NASCAR CUP SERIES
TOYOTA/SAVE MART 350
SONOMA RACEWAY
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES & QUOTES
JUNE 6, 2021
TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 1LE
2nd CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE
6th KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE
7th ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE
9th ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE
TOP FIVE UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:
POS. DRIVER
1st Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)
2nd Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)
3rd Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)
4th Joey Logano (Ford)
5th Kyle Busch (Toyota)
The NASCAR Cup Series season continues next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway for the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday, June 13, at 8 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE NOTES AND QUOTES:
KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Race Winner
YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A GOOD QUALIFIER AT SONOMA. NOW YOU’RE A GOOD RACER AND YOU GOT THE WIN TODAY. IT WAS YOUR SECOND WIN IN A ROW, AND YOU DID IT IN DOMINATING FASHION. WAS IT AS EASY AS YOU MADE IT LOOK?
“It was not easy. Any road course isn’t easy, just trying to keep it on track is tough; especially when you’ve got two of the best behind you on the last restart, Chase (Elliott) and Martin (Truex, Jr.). I felt like I did a good job at the one before and stretched it out a little bit and didn’t want to give him another try at it, but he kept the pressure on. Martin was strong too, but what a car. This HendrickCars.com Chevy, thank you Mr. Hendrick. The is unbelievable. I thought I would be okay today, but I just didn’t know how I would race. I don’t think of us really do with no practice. But our car was really good there and I can’t say enough about it.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN IN FRONT OF YOUR HOMETOWN FANS?
“Yeah, it means a lot. Northern California will always be home to me, even if I live way out on the East Coast now. Thanks to all the fans for coming out. I know there’s a lot of Sprint Car fans in the stands and around this race track. I got to see a lot of my friends here today. I’ve got my family here. This is unbelievable.
“And to get back-to-back wins in the Cup Series is something I’ve always dreamed of doing and to get it done feels great. To win last week on Memorial Day weekend, four in a row now, if you count my dirt racing too. And we’ve got a big week of racing coming up. I look forward to all that and just look forward to keeping the streak going.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 2nd
THIS IS YOUR BEST FINISH AT SONOMA. WHAT A BATTLE BETWEEN TEAMMATES. WHERE WAS KYLE LARSON JUST BETTER THAN YOU TODAY?
“I wish I knew. I would have tried to give him a little better run. But congratulations to Kyle (Larson) and Cliff (Daniels, crew chief), and everybody on the No. 5 team. They’ve been doing an amazing job. I’m really proud of our NAPA group, though. I feel like we were a lot better there at the end than we were at the beginning; and definitely the best I’ve ever been here, I feel like, at Sonoma, in particular. I’m pleased with that. I wish we could have gotten another spot, but we’ll try again.”
KURT BUSCH, NO. 1 MONSTER ENERGY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 6th
“We had a smooth day. We figured out how to have a nice easy execution. I worked with Ross (Chastain), our teammate to get two top-10’s. It was almost a top-five type car, just needed better drive off the corners. To be in the mix and have the right strategy and have a smooth day, we’ll take it, and were going to build on it.”
ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 42 CLOVER CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 7th
“Whoa!, seventh on a dry road course! This No. 42 team is so good, they gave me a Clover Chevy that I can go out and race with the best Cup Series guys; it just seems wild. The pit sequences were crazy; the car is pretty clean. A good day for both the No. 1 and 42 teams. I got to race with the No.1 car a lot there at the end, and only touched a little bit, which is hard to do here. A good teammate day and good building day for CGR.”
ALEX BOWMAN, NO. 48 ALLY CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 9th
“Solid Top-10 day. Wish we would have been a little better. We were really fast to start, we just kind of struggled with track position and using the car up to get through the field. Onto the next one.”
DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 COMMSCOPE CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 12th
“It was an up-and-down day. I feel like we deserved a top-10 out of today. It was really hard there at the end, just pushing and banging. The car was good on the short run, but it was very bad on the long runs. We’ll have to keep working. We’ll try to make our cars a little bit better. I feel like today, we deserved a few spots better. I’m very proud of this team, we just have to keep getting better.”
AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 CONGRESSIONAL SPORTSMEN’S CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 13th
“We lost the alternator as soon as the race started. It just started to lose voltage. The guys did a great job changing batteries and we were able to get sixth-place stage points that first stage. We just had to grind it out; battle it out. We kept losing track position, but we fought hard all day.”
“I can’t thank all the guys enough. The good Lord was looking after us today.”
TYLER REDDICK, NO. 8 CHILDRESS VINEYARDS CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Finished 19th
Even though it’s my home track, today was the first time I had ever even seen Sonoma Raceway, so it was a big learning day all race long. My No. 8 Childress Vineyards Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE had some really good speed in it, I just needed better rotation and front grip for both the left and right-handed turns. It took me a couple laps at the start to learn how to pass on this course too, but once I got that figured out I was able to move up through the field better. Unfortunately, I had a tire rub after contact with the No. 48 car that caused me to have to pit for tires and burn one of our sets early. From that point on, we had to adjust our strategy to try to make it to the end of the race with the tires we had left. During the first batch late race cautions, I had to stay out and fight for every spot I could on older tires than the rest of the field. We eventually pitted to put on eight-lap scuffs since they were better than what we were on and just made the most of it. It’s frustrating to be way better than where we finished, but sometimes that happens and we did what we could. We will move on to the All-Star race next weekend and regroup there.”
WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 AXALTA CAMARO ZL1 1LE – Sidelined by damage sustained in an accident on lap 76; Finished 35th
WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM THE DRIVER’S SEAT?
“I was trying to roll the outside of the No. 43 (Erik Jones) and the No. 4 (Kevin Harvick) was in front of me. I thought he was going to run the bottom and obviously somebody spun in front of him and caused a big pileup. At that point, you’re just a passenger. You’re obviously going to knock the radiator in and be done for the day.”
“It stinks, but we were struggling all day to be honest. So, we have to go back and work on that. Definitely learned some lessons. Thanks to Axalta, Chevrolet and everyone. We’ll re-group. It was really the first bad weekend of the year, so we’ll re-group from it.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 1LE, Second-Place Press Conference Transcript:
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us, Chase. We’ll go straight into questions for Chase Elliott.
Q. Obviously you and Larson raced each other clean but hard all day. Do you have to race each other differently than if it was another car not on your team?
CHASE ELLIOTT: No, I think it’s really more the individual than it is what team you drive for whether or not you get along. Kyle and I have always raced each other with a lot of respect ever since we started racing against each other.
Yeah, all was good. It was fun.
Q. With this run today, back-to-back second-place finishes, do you feel you and your team are starting to get into a rhythm and you can compete with Kyle for some of these wins?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I hope so. We were solid today. Just not good enough at the right times.
But, yeah, no, I feel good about our group. We have a solid group. We just have to put it all together and execute when it counts most.
Q. (Indiscernible)?
CHASE ELLIOTT: I couldn’t hear you. Maybe something about the 2019 race.
It was really similar to what I thought we had then. The course layout is a little different. Yeah, I thought it was just like it was here a couple years ago.
Q. What were your initial thoughts about the racetrack for the first several laps?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Asphalt and had left and right turns. I don’t know. Looked the same as it had since they built it.
Q. You talked about racing back and forth with Kyle Larson. Where do you feel he was better than you today that ultimately got him the race win?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I don’t really know exactly. There were spots on the track where I thought I was a tick better, and there were spots on the track he was better. Then there were spots I thought we were fairly even. Needed to have a tick more to get after it.
Proud of our team. I thought we were solid. Just need a little bit.
Q. It seems this is now the third week in a row we’ve seen the Hendrick cars battle amongst each other for the win. How do you balance sharing notes between teammates to be strong as a team but secrets yourself to be strong in your own group?
CHASE ELLIOTT: Yeah, I mean, everything is kind of an open book. It has been since I’ve been here. We just have to continue to push. I don’t think anything really changes there.
THE MODERATOR: Chase, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Thank you.
Team Chevy high-resolution racing photos are available for editorial use.
About Chevrolet
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