Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Duel Qualifying Race 2 | Wednesday, February 12, 2025
AUSTIN CINDRIC WINS SECOND DUEL RACE
- Team Penske’s Austin Cindric won the second Duel Qualifying race tonight.
- Ford has now won at least one Duel race in seven of the last eight years.
- Corey LaJoie raced his way into the Daytona 500 as an Open car.
FORD FINISHING RESULTS:
1st – Austin Cindric
3rd – Chris Buescher
5th – Joey Logano
6th – Corey LaJoie
7th – Todd Gilliland
8th – Ryan Blaney
15th – Cody Ware
16th – Cole Custer
18th – Noah Gragson
20th – Brad Keselowski
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW: YOU JUST HAD A LONG WALK LOOKING FOR THE CHECKERED FLAG. HOW DOES THAT FEEL? “It’s great to get the points and obviously have a fast car and get to practice a good bit of execution – a good teammate and good teamwork with most of the Fords, so I’m proud of that effort. The guys did a really great job and I’m happy I was able to race tonight.”
FRONT ROW IN QUALIFYING AND YOU WIN THE DUEL. THIS HAS GONE ABOUT AS GOOD AS IT CAN SO FAR. “It’s a long week ahead. There’s still a lot to go.”
YOU”RE THE WINNER. HOW WAS THE RACE? “Obviously a great race for us and a fast Discount Tire Ford Mustang, but I would say a bit of a surprise there. I thought it was super close. Sitting from my perspective, I thought I got it, but I think the 43 beat me to the line, but the caution light came out a little earlier, so obviously it was a great result and glad my guys let me race this one tonight to see what we had. Now we can tune on this thing for the 500.”
YOU HAVE A FAST CAR FOR ONE LAP AND A FAST CAR FOR 60 LAPS. WHAT DID YOU LEARN FOR SUNDAY? “I think I learned quite a bit. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can apply. Maybe we can work on it a little bit in these two practice sessions we have coming up. It’s still a long week ahead. We pretty much have to do three more of those Duels with a lot more cars and some really competitive cars and some tough competition and a lot of room for error. I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
COREY LAJOIE, No. 01 Take 5 Oil Change/DuraMax Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Driving through this you have one eye out the windshield and one on the mirror to make sure whoever you are racing, you want to keep behind. I knew we blended well. Our pit road sequence there [on the pit stop], we had a good cadence. We came in with the Penske cars, we were able to have some good track position there for the last restart. I felt good about our chances there. I wanted to make sure I didn’t push the [number] 17 there in a bad way, get him in a bad spot. Once you know you are in a good spot you are just trying to get it home. I can’t say enough about the RWR guys and Take 5 and DuraMax for coming on last minute. I fronted the money to Rick Ware in January to make sure nobody else got this car because I believe that much in him and this group. Luckily for me, DuraMax and Take 5 came in and took me off the financial hook. When you have to race your way in, you appreciate the event. You appreciate how hard it is. You appreciate the attention it gets. To earn one of those four open spots is really special. You take it for granted when you show up and you know you are racing. It is a different feeling for me driving my motorhome down here with eight hours of windshield time wondering when I am going to be driving the motorhome back, Friday morning or Monday morning? I was never planning for it to be Friday.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “This Fastenal Mustang is really good. I’m really happy with that. The pit cycle got a little messier than we wanted. It seems to happen here and there at the end I had some really good help from Corey from behind us. We were able to make some really good momentum from our lane and ultimately the bottom just tightened up a little bit better there and I need to work a little harder to keep lanes better, but I’m pretty happy with this hot rod.”
