Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Straight Talk 500 — Phoenix Raceway
Sunday, March 8, 2026
RYAN BLANEY SCORES FIRST CUP OF 2026 FOR FORD RACING AND MUSTANG DARK HORSE; GIVES DOUG YATES 450TH CAREER NASCAR VICTORY
- Ryan Blaney won his first race of 2026 and the 18th Cup race of his career today.
- It also marks the 450th NASCAR win for Doug Yates (Cup, NOAPS and Truck combined) since beginning his career in 1990, and all of them have been with Ford.
- The win for Blaney is his second straight at Phoenix Raceway after he won the 2025 season finale in November.
- Today’s win is the first of the season for Ford and 749th all-time in NASCAR Cup Series competition
- It also marks Team Penske’s 108th series win with Ford.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Dent Wizard Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW
TALK ABOUT THE PERSEVERENCE TODAY. “That’s really what it’s all about. Perseverance. That’s a great word to kind of describe our day. I had a couple mistakes on pit road and learned from them and moved forward, and I didn’t have a mistake the rest of the day. It was unfortunate that they happened back-to-back, but these guys learned from it and rectified it and we were able to stay in the game. Our car was fast enough to be in the game. I thought the 20 was the best car on the day for sure, but we stayed in the game enough and Jonathan made a great call for two on the last caution and we were able to get the lead there and then hold the 20 off. I don’t know how many more laps I could have held him off, but it was enough laps to do it. I’m proud of the whole group for sticking with it all day and cool to win here again, just a handful of months later.”
HOW HAS THIS TRACK AGED TO GIVE YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO RALLY FROM THE BACK? “It definitely helps it out. It helps that it gets wider. Three and four got really wide. That part was cool. Three and four got up there and it was able to get used. It was a hot day. The tires wore out, more horsepower, I think you get that, so I thought it was a good race today.”
TEAM PENSKE SWEEPS THE WEEKEND. THE INDYCAR GUYS PUT THE HEAT ON YOU AFTER WINNING FOR ROGER YESTERDAY. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN BOTH RACES FOR HIM? “Anytime you can win for Roger it means the world, but those IndyCar guys put a lot of pressure on us yesterday. When Josef won I was like, ‘Alright, one of us has got to do it today.’ It’s a shame that the three others weren’t able to finish, but at least we got Roger back in Victory Lane for the second day in a row and completed the Penske sweep. That’s a cool deal.”
Ford Unofficial Finishing Results:
1st – Ryan Blaney
12th – Todd Gilliland
13th – Ryan Preece
14th – Chris Buescher
15th – Brad Keselowski
27th – Zane Smith
31st – Joey Logano
32nd – Josh Berry
34th – Austin Cindric
36th – Noah Gragson
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 eero Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I didn’t see a whole lot. Obviously, I saw the smoke there for a second and could tell that something was happening, and I checked up, someone got into me. Either way, I was wrecking. It was a tough day, a really tough day. We didn’t have the car like we wanted. We had some bright spots there and got some track position and looked alright. Ultimately, we were down a set of tires and, honestly, we were just trying to finish it out and take what we could today. We just got caught up in the issues. You know the old saying, you run with the squirrels, you get what you get.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It just seemed like we were kind of three and maybe four-wide there and one ran out of space and when you’re that far away from each other it’s hard to tell who is where until they all kind of merge back together and I got on the wrong end of it.” WHAT HAPPENED? “It just seemed like everyone ran out of space. There were two cars on the outside of me. I thought I had one on the inside and you’re trying to just merge all back together and everyone ran out of space. I got the wrong end of it. It is what it is. It stinks. We had a pretty good car. I hate that I got into Ross. I had a good run there to try to slip him and he kind of anticipated and went down to the bottom and we got into each other. I just ended up spinning him, which I didn’t mean to, so it’s just not the greatest of days.”
NOAH GRAGSON, No. 4 Straight Talk Wireless Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “We blew a right-front rotor and then it blew the tire out. I started getting a long pedal a couple of laps prior to that and I made a comment about it after about a half lap saying, ‘Hey, my pedal is starting to get really long.’ So, I started lifting early and then it blew into one, and then blew the tire wheel in half and all the air-pressure left the tire. It was a hard hit, but it is what it is.” JUST HOW FRUSTRATING IS THIS START TO THE SEASON FOR YOU? “I was thinking about that on the golf cart ride over here. It definitely sucks having to go early next week in qualifying and try to put this behind us at Vegas, but, at the same time, this is the most amount of points I’ve had coming into Phoenix in my career into Vegas. Two years ago we were in the negatives and climbed back up into the top 24 in points, so we’ll just go on and work hard. It’s just a bummer that we didn’t get to the end today.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Menards/Quaker State Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “Obviously, it’s a frustrating start with so many fast race cars and to have another one today with our Quaker State/Menards Ford Mustang. The restarts get crazy here and I’m not really sure what happened other than just cars jumping right across the racetrack. I’m not sure I’ve ever jumped head-on into a wall, but that changed today. It’s just a shame. I’m not discouraged. This 2 team has shown me a lot in the first four races, but it’s just a shame we don’t have the results for them.” WHAT DID YOU SEE ON THE TRACK? “A whole lot of cars going right when the cars need to be going left. It’s just a real shame. We had a really fast Quaker State/Menards Ford Mustang. We got points in both stages and were in desperate need of a race finish without a crash and we did not get that today. It’s a shame because I felt like we did all the right things throughout the afternoon, so that’s racing. I’m not discouraged by any means. It’s a long season. My team has brought me four fast race cars to start the year.”
