Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Geico 500 | Sunday, April 23, 2023
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
2nd – Ryan Blaney
3rd – Chris Buescher
4th – Chase Briscoe
5th – Brad Keselowski
10th – Todd Gilliland
11th – JJ Yeley
20th – Aric Almirola
21st – Kevin Harvick
25th – Riley Herbst
26th – Austin Cindric
30th – Joey Logano
34th – Ryan Preece
35th – Michael McDowell
36th – Harrison Burton
37th – Zane Smith
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Wurth Ford Mustang (Finished 2nd) – “The Fords were quick. We did a good job working together, but it’s unfortunate we got a little separated there with the No. 4 having to pit and the No. 10 having a right-front flat. I think we worked great together… just I think someone ran out of gas at the restart zone and kind of hurt our lane. By the time we got back up there, we tried to make every run we could. It’s a fast car, just a shame not to win. This is a completely separate race than anywhere else, so you take it for what its worth, get ready to go for the next speedway. Hopefully, the momentum carries over.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang (Finished 3rd) – “It was a good finish for our Fastenal Mustang. It was not as much fun on the day as I expected. Just really hard to make any moves – lanes just stalled out, handing didn’t seem to come into play. I don’t know if it was temperatures or what. Just not as much movement as we hoped… just thought we’d have more opportunities there. Everybody worked hard and got us up there in the end. We had enough fuel, and threw some good strategy in there. We were in the hunt for it. I wanted to see the lap play out. I felt like we had a good run up-top, but looking back I don’t think we had any help either. I don’t know. At the end of the day, it was a good finish. The race itself wasn’t as much fun as I was hoping for, for us.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 Mahindra Tractors YOG Ford Mustang (Finished 4th) – “Wild day. I made a huge mistake coming to pit road. We’re two laps down, and then we were one and was going to get the lucky dog at the end of Stage 2, and then [Joey] Logano had that speeding penalty and barely got us for the lucky dog. It was a battle all day long – very similar to how we kind of were at the end of last year, just continuing to fight and keep doing everything we could to try to maximize our day. At the end, find ourselves up there and in the top-five. I would have loved to have a little bit more, but if you told me we were going to finish fourth there –at any point of the race really, even there with 20 [laps] to go. We were so stuck in the back and couldn’t really do anything. So, cool to get this Mahindra ‘Old Goat’ car in the top-five and looking forward to next week.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang (Finished 5th) – “We could just never get track position. Felt like we had a car that could win this race if we could get to the front, but we could never get to the front with all the pit cycles and everything. It just kept cycling us back, and it was really frustrating. Towards the end when we got to the front, I feel like if the No. 23 didn’t spin, we were in a spot to win the race, pushing eight down the back-stretch. It’s just not the way the cookies crumbled.”
TODD GILLILAND, No. 36 Gener8tor Skills Ford Mustang (Finished 10th) – “Long race for us out there. We never had any good track position so we were constantly fighting all day for one or two spots at a time. With a team that doesn’t do it every week and starting from the rear, I’m proud of our result.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang (Finished 20th) – “There’s so much to be proud of. We had a great race car and ran up-front – led, was in position all day, and then just Ross [Chastain] doing Ross things on that restart. Wiped out the right side of our car, and either broke something in the right-front suspension or had the right-front tire go flat. So, it took a race car that had a great shot to win and crashed. That part is frustrating. But, we have a lot to be proud of. Drew [Blickensderfer] and these guys gave us an unbelievable speedway car again, and we keep showing up to these places with an opportunity to win. The last few weeks we’ve had really fast race cars and ran up-front, so at some point we’re going to convert and win us one.”
