Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Goodyear 400 — Darlington Raceway
Sunday, April 6, 2025
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
5th – Ryan Blaney
6th – Chris Buescher
11th – Austin Cindric
12th – Zane Smith
13th – Joey Logano
14th – Todd Gilliland
19th – Noah Gragson
22nd – Cole Custer
26th – Ryan Preece
27th – Cody Ware
33rd – Brad Keselowski
36th – Josh Berry
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Dutch Boy Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER A DAY LIKE THIS? “I’m proud of the effort that we had. I’m obviously disappointed in the result. I thought we could have won the race and had a good shot at winning the race. We did the last run perfectly. I thought our pit call was fantastic and our car was fast enough to stay. It had a lot of speed in it late, but a late yellow and then lost the lead off pit road. We didn’t even get to start on the front row and you’re not gonna go from fourth to first in a green-white-checkered here, so it just wasn’t meant to be, but proud of the effort.”
WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND AFTER YOU PASS REDDICK FOR THE LEAD AND THE CAUTION COMES OUT? “If the caution didn’t come out, I thought we had it won easily. We were so much faster on newer tires. It was a great strategy call running long. Those guys short pitted and they were struggling real bad, and I thought if we could have just got off of two with the lead and the caution didn’t come out, I thought I was gonna kind of ride off into the sunset. That’s just not how it worked, unfortunately. We lost the lead on pit road, lost a front row starting spot and never had a shot.”
HOW TOUGH WAS IT TODAY WITH THE PIT CYCLE GOING AGAINST YOU AND THE JACK ISSUE ON ANOTHER STOP? “It was just a day where nothing really went our way. It’s kind of crappy. That part sucks about it. Your car is so fast and we just kept having to make it up. It was like, ‘Gosh, we have to come from 15th to the top three.’ We just could never start at the front. I thought we were, by far, the best car, especially the second half of the race and just had to keep playing catch-up, so we have to clean a few things up on our end, for sure, but I’m really proud of the effort. This is the best car I’ve ever had here. I thought Jonathan did a great job, but that stings. I really wanted to win here and it just wasn’t meant to be.”
IF YOU HAD THE SITUATION LIKE BYRON, YOU COULD HAVE LED THE FIRST COUPLE HUNDRED LAPS? “Yeah, I feel like it. I felt very similar to Homestead with how good we were there and how much we were able to lead when we got to clean air. I just never got there. I was just never able to get there and kind of control the race. I was always playing catch-up and that makes it tough here.”
AT ONE POINT YOU WENT FROM FOURTH TO 16TH ON A PIT STOP AND THEN LATE YOU LOST THE FRONT ROW. HOW DO YOU JUSTIFY THAT OR INTERNALIZE THAT AS A DRIVER? “We’ve just got some things to work on. Hey, I make mistakes. I screw up a lot. Those guys don’t have great stops every now and then, it’s just part of this sport, but they’ll go to work and figure it out where they need to improve, just like we do with our race car. Where do we have to improve on that, so those guys do the same thing and try to come back even better.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “We had a really fast Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang. I’m really proud of everybody. We made some really good adjustments after practice and got it decent for qualifying and really good in the race. That untimely caution just got us and put us behind for the majority of it, so we clawed our way out of it with some good pit calls. The pit crew did a really nice job today and we got back in the hunt there by the end. We just needed a couple more laps and we probably would have been a little better than some of the cars, but it’s hard to say. We just got a tough break with that one caution.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Freightliner Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW WOULD YOU ASSESS THE DAY? “Obviously, stage points at the beginning with a great starting spot. We had a good start, but unfortunately the caution came out and trapped us a lap down on the pit cycle and we spent the whole race trying to recover from that. But we were really good on short runs. We fell off pretty hard on long runs, but Brian and the guys never gave up on adjustments and I felt like we got the car a lot better balanced by the end of the race and we were fighting our way through making spots. We made a few more on that last restart, so it was a good way to end a day that was gonna be dominated by something out of our control.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It always gets tight off of two here at Darlington and it looked like just me and the 45 got together. It’s hard to say one way or the other if he came up a little bit or I was a little too low. Obviously, you’re trying to keep it out of the fence and clear that bump and everything, so I don’t know. It’s a racing deal, I guess.”
HOW WAS THE RACING WAS UP UNTIL THAT POINT? “It seemed fine. We had a good car. I feel like we steadily worked our way forward throughout the whole race and caught a break on that green flag sequence to get up front, but I thought our car held on well and I think we had a shot at a really solid finish.”
