Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Goodyear 400 Qualifying — Darlington Raceway
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Ford Qualifying Results:
2nd – Ryan Preece
6th – Austin Cindric
9th – Ryan Blaney
12th – Todd Gilliland
14th – Chris Buescher
16th – Zane Smith
18th – Joey Logano
20th – Brad Keselowski
24th – Josh Berry
26th – Noah Gragson
31st – Cole Custer
35th – Cody Ware
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Freightliner Ford Mustang Dark Horse – A TOP 10 STARTING SPOT FOR TOMORROW. ARE YOU HAPPY WITH HOW QUALIFYING PLAYED OUT? “Yeah, it’s sometimes difficult to tell where you’re at with the two different groups and knowing that I felt like the track was gonna pick up. I thought we had a pretty good lap and we’ll try to work on it for tomorrow.”
ARE YOU MORE CONFIDENT THIS WEEK AFTER THE ISSUES LAST WEEK WITH THE BATTERY? “I think we’re more prepared to handle them. It wasn’t a battery issue, it was the alternator not charging the battery, so being able to identify what those are. There are no part changes or anything that would make us feel like there would be a reason why we would have that, so it’s definitely something you’ve got to look at and important moving forward.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE INCIDENT WITH THE 35 LAST WEEK? “It’s kind of an unfortunate deal, especially if you’re Riley because I felt like it kind of got jumbled up there off of turn two and got us all three-wide. I spent the entire front straightaway kind of getting squeezed and I kind of got shoved up into the 35 and spun him out. On my end, there’s nothing. That’s probably the first lap I spent side-by-side with Riley, and I have no issues with Riley either. I hope that’s somewhat clear to see that it was just a bit of a three-wide situation gone wrong and unfortunately I feel like the lesson for me in that is I’m the first one with an opportunity to lift to not make it three-wide. I wasn’t fully alongside everybody, so with as far back as we were running at the point in the race it was probably the right thing to do, especially if I would have known that we weren’t gonna be able to stay three-wide for more than a corner. I think that’s the major takeaway for me and obviously that contact affected Riley’s race and his finish.”
YOU DIDN’T HAVE A LOT OF TIME TO CORRECT. IT LOOKED LIKE YOU GOT UP IN THE MARBLES. “Yeah, there was pretty slight contact from the 16 once we got in entry and into the braking. At that point, you’re braking into the corner and the smallest margins upset cars and it’s unfortunate that it happened.”
DO YOU WORRY BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED EARLIER THIS YEAR THAT PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU RUN INTO PEOPLE ON PURPOSE? “Yeah, I feel like that one is a bit of a stretch to look at and go, ‘Oh, man. He was out to get him,’ especially if you look at what happened and what happened before that even got us three-wide. Other people’s opinions are things that I cannot control, but past that I think the only thing I can control is my relationship with Riley and I feel like from ARCA, Truck, Xfinity and Cup, he and I have always been pretty good. I sent him a text right after the race and thought I had some ownership in that, and that’s about all I can do to move forward. It doesn’t help his finish and at the end of the day my race didn’t even matter because I wasn’t even gonna finish anyway, so it’s just kind of an annoying thing to happen on a day that was already definitely challenging for us.”
