Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Quaker State 400 | Sunday, July 9, 2023
Ford Finishing Results:
4th – Michael McDowell
6th – Brad Keselowski
7th – JJ Yeley
9th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Austin Cindric
15th – Chris Buescher
16th – Todd Gilliland
17th – Joey Logano
18th – Aric Almirola
22nd – Chase Briscoe
24th – Ryan Preece
28th – Harrison Burton
30th – Kevin Harvick
32nd – Cole Custer
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 6 Castrol Edge Ford Mustang – “It was a good day. We were right where we needed to be, but didn’t get the breaks we needed. I was really happy with our performance and quality of the cars we had. My teammate, Chris Buescher, did a good job, but just didn’t catch the breaks we needed at the end.”
YOU SIZED UP THE SCENARIO AFTER STAGE 2 WITH YOUR FUEL SITUATION. YOU DIDN’T ENVY YOUR CREW CHIEF’S SITUATION AT THAT MOMENT, DID YOU? “No, we had 12-14 laps left of fuel and that was not enough and we ended up running 15 laps or so. I think we made the right call, we just needed the rain to be 10 minutes earlier or 10 minutes later.”
WHAT IS THE EMOTION KNOWING YOU HAD A CAR TO WIN AND HAVE MOTHER NATURE TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR HANDS? “It’s just part of the deal. You win races you shouldn’t and you lose ones you probably should win and you have to take the punches as they come.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 FR8 Auctions Ford Mustang – HOW WAS THE TRACK TONIGHT? “I think the start of the race it was less like a restrictor plate. We were all sliding around pretty good. You’d go in the corner, you’d slide from the bottom to the top, but as the sun went down and the track cooled off it had more of that superspeedway feel, where you were pretty much wide-open and just trying to time those runs. It still races different than Talladega and Daytona, but it’s pretty close to superspeedway.”
FOR THE SITUATION YOU WERE IN WITH VIRTUALLY NO GAS, THIS END WAS A BEST-CASE SCENARIO. “I think Travis did a great job of maximizing our track position when we needed to. Obviously, that pit road incident with Martin took us out of the track position we needed, so we had to get a little bit creative there. I’m thankful to be able to recover, but really wish I’d have held those guys off at the end. We had a shot on that restart, obviously, starting on the front row. I thought I executed the start pretty well, but just couldn’t quite get clear of AJ like I needed to, but it didn’t work out. We were close, though.”
HOW WAS YOUR NIGHT? “It was a bit of a wild race. We were able to get to the front early on there and get some stage points and then that first stop on pit road had contact with Martin Truex and had to fix the car. It had a little bit of damage and that really set us back, but Travis Peterson did a great job calling the race and getting us track position when we needed it before the rain came. Our FR8 Auctions Ford Mustang was pretty fast, even after that little bit of damage, so I think we maximized what we could right there, but we were pretty close to winning the race, too. I’m a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t hold those guys off for a couple more laps.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Wurth Ford Mustang – “I feel great with the race car, it’s just the weather that’s not cooperating. You say mixed strategies. Some guys played the game of it may be raining before stage 2 was over and that’s the chance we took and had to restart in the back, and then it looked like we might run the whole race and then this rain happened. I thought our car was super fast. The Wurth Ford Mustang was really good, just weird split strategy with rain kind of throws everything off and we just ran out of time.”
