Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Racing Media Zoom Call
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse, is coming off a second place finish last weekend at Kansas Speedway, moving up to ninth in the Chase standings. Cindric answered questions as part of this week’s Ford Racing media call, including his expectations for Sunday’s race in Las Vegas.
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DOES SUNDAY’S RUN HELP GOING INTO VEGAS AND THEN CHARLOTTE? “I’m certainly hoping it translates. Obviously, there are plenty of similarities between the tracks, but also there are some pretty key differences, and I think the mile-and-a-halves coming up are just that much more different with Charlotte and Homestead. I think being able to kind of verify our notebook, but have some validity from the weekend prior is really important for not just us on the 2 car, but everyone at Team Penske was definitely a step up in performance from the spring.”
DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING NEW ON YOUR CAR IN KANSAS AND WILL THAT TRANSLATE TO ANYTHING NEW FOR VEGAS, CHARLOTTE AND HOMESTEAD? “As far as things learned throughout the year, I think, for us, it’s so long ago since we were at Vegas and in Kansas early in the season. Other than a year’s worth of work, nothing further to report, but, obviously, it was a strong effort and a strong performance that we’re hoping to be able to continue to replicate and understand further what we need to continue to add to our cars.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE A REALISTIC SHOT TO STILL WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? “I haven’t asked for the math, but if the math says I can do it, then I can do it. That’s really the only mentality I can have. I think for us to go from one of the lowest seeds to the top 10 in the standings is great, but, for me, the mentality since the Chase has started is to have fun and be loose and not really having anything to lose and all to gain. I think that’s how I’m gonna continue to race from here until the end of the season.”
FORD HAS TAKEN OFF SINCE THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST. WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THAT TO? “I think a few weeks ago or the last month or so you could probably attribute it to the track type, but we’ve kind of checked the box at least with one mile-and-a-half. Like you said, it’s the team. It’s a whole group effort. As I said in the prior question, it’s a year’s worth of work to get us to this point. I’m proud to have that work pay off and hopefully we’ll be able to use that notebook to continue to excel for the remainder of the season.”
ALMOST HALFWAY THROUGH THE CHASE. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT HAS STOOD OUT TO YOU ABOUT HOW THIS NEW FORMAT HAS PLAYED OUT? “I think the importance of a race win, even just in the new points format, not necessarily from just the 10-race Chase, but just in general. That 25 difference, for example, I’d say on average, I don’t know what my average points per race is something like 20-25 points or something like that. That’s a 15th or 16th place finish, something like that. It’s in the teens. It’s like if you win a race, you also have like a 13th place finish that nobody else has. You know what I mean? You think about it that way and you almost have another decent race worth of points for winning a race and that’s a huge advantage when you start stacking it on top. You see that with Larson right now, but as quickly as that comes that can quickly go as well. It’s been very interesting to watch. It’s been very interesting to watch how my competition goes and races and the mentality for 10 full races, instead of just three at a time. I think that’s been a pretty clear difference for me, so I think those two things are pretty obvious as far as how it’s changed the game, but, otherwise, obviously the racing is still all the same.”
WHY DO YOU THINK IT SEEMS SO STARK WITH THE POINT SWINGS WHERE IF BRISCOE HAD WON INSTEAD OF LARSON LAST WEEKEND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MUCH DIFFERENT? “That makes it exciting to watch.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED TO HEAR THE NEWS ABOUT BRAD KESELOWSKI LEAVING RFK AT THE END OF THE YEAR? “It’s a situation that I certainly don’t know a lot about from the internals, but I would say my reaction is probably along with most of you all as far as learning that information. Obviously, I have a relationship with Brad. Brad gave me my start in the Truck Series and it was his idea to throw me in at Martinsville back in 2015, so I think it will be interesting for a guy like that. He said he’s not done racing and he’s obviously a super talented guy and a super smart guy, so I’m definitely interested to see how that all plays out and whether if that’s from the team side, there are other Ford teammates there, but also see where Brad lands and what happens there. I guess I’m kind of on the sidelines with you all as far as observing and we’ll see what happens there.”
YOU OBVIOUSLY FEEL HE STILL HAS THE TALENT, RIGHT, AND IS THIS CHASE FORMAT MORE OR LESS STRESSFUL? “Obviously, Brad has run up front and led races at several points throughout the year and you don’t do that without an extent of knowledge and talent to be able to do so. I’m not sure I have to be the one waving the flag, but I think it’s obvious to see. As far as the Chase format being demanding, I think it depends on what position you’re in. I just got done saying that I’m in a position where I can’t really fail as far as how we were seeding. You look at it and, okay, we’re in the top 10 do we want to protect? No, not really. I feel like you just go try and get the maximum every week. You can’t really give much more than that and if you and yourself and your team are used to putting yourselves in that environment, then the pressure seems to be a lot less. I think everybody internalizes it differently, but, as I said earlier, it’s kind of fun to watch and see how everybody has been reacting to it and trying to maximize their opportunities with what points position they are in.”
HAS THE RACING ON THE INTERMEDIATE TRACKS BEEN MORE TAMER THIS YEAR, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE SPLITTER WAS ADJUSTED? “You can make the argument that there have been more tamer races this year, no doubt, but I wouldn’t attribute it to any parts changes on the cars. I can’t say I’ve really made the correlation. If I’m reviewing Vegas from earlier this year, we had one caution and it was during a pit cycle and that was really it, so that’s not a whole lot than what we saw last weekend at Kansas. For me personally, I think the only correlation you can look at is from a points format standpoint, but even then at the early part of the year why wouldn’t everyone have reason to go for it no different than what they would with the old points format. I think it’s just an evolution. Expecting a bunch of cautions, in my book, doesn’t necessarily create for a worse or better racing. We had a battle for the lead for the last 40 laps of that race. Now, whether it’s a green flag cycle or restarts I guess it depends on what your favorite flavor is, but I would have guessed I considered last weekend a pretty entertaining race.”
WHAT HAS LED THE CONSISTENCY YOU’VE HAD ALL YEAR? “From a consistency standpoint, I would definitely attribute it to a few things. One, out of necessity from where we kind of landed from a points standpoint by just before the summertime, right on the fringe of being above the cut. We’ve been points racing for two-and-a-half months before the Chase even started, so I think some of the repetition of that definitely plays in. We feel like we’ve been in this position of really caring about points for a lot longer than I feel like the rest of the field. I’m not necessarily saying that attributes to performance. If anything, it probably does the opposite and makes you want to fall into a bucket of being somewhat conservative, which is very frustrating when you can see opportunity with maybe being more aggressive or changing your mentality. So, I think that’s why for us the Chase has been a breath of fresh air, just because you have the opportunity to do what we haven’t had the chance to do the last handful of months, but we’ve also been consistent since that started. I think it’s just a multitude of things, not just the mentality, but myself, Brian, two or three years ago we had a pretty young team and we’re getting more experience and racing at a higher level. We’re just raising the basement of what our performance capabilities are and I think that on average or what we’re talented as a group, I think that contributes to that because some of those 13th place days aren’t where I ran 13th all day. It’s we grinded and figured it out and finished 13th, and then some of those 13th place days we ran sixth or seventh all day and screwed it up and ended up 13th, so the numbers never tell the story, but it is somewhat funny to look back at some of those and almost look boring, but I don’t think there have been too many boring moments in our year. Obviously, it was a fun race, but from a nothing exciting or crazy or stupid happening was this past weekend where we ran better than we have all year, so I think the more calm races are the ones you have the pace.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THE HAIR HAS HAD TO DO WITH THE 2? “I don’t think it’s contributed in the slightest, but I’m not gonna say I’m tired of people bringing up my hair. I guess I’m not wearing a hat, so it could be something else, but I’ll tell you one thing. The one thing that does, and it almost comes off as an insult and maybe I internalize it or maybe I should internalize it better is when people say, ‘I like your hair better.’ That means people didn’t like my hair before. How does that land? I don’t know. I have to deal with that daily, so maybe even worse the hair is mentally, so I’m rising above this mental challenge.”
IN THE SPRING VEGAS RACE MOST OF THE PIT ROAD SPEEDING PENALITIES CAME IN SECTION ONE. IS THERE A PARTICULAR CHALLENGE FOR A DRIVER GETTING ONTO PIT ROAD THERE AND A SHORT SECTION LIKE THAT? “As far as section one is concerned, if it’s under green flag conditions, it’s definitely challenging because if you don’t get slowed up in time by the speed line, like somewhere that would have a longer first section, you could kind of give the speed back because it’s timing line to timing line. It’s time-based over distance and then it calculates your speed. So if I’m too fast on my lights, I can just slow down and try to give it back. With a short section, you can’t really give it back. Under yellow, I guess there wouldn’t be any excuse to having an issue other than just not being consistent with your lights.”
IN THE LAST TWO VEGAS RACES WE’VE SEEN CAUTION BECAUSE OF CONTACT WITH ONE CAR TRYING TO GET ON PIT ROAD. IS THAT A COINCIDENCE OR IS THERE A PARTICULAR CHALLENGE AT THAT PLACE UNDER GREEN? “I think a little bit of both. It’s funny, I just got out of my pre-event meeting with Brian and we discussed this because that caution is what caught us out and we were on pit road and went a lap down. It ruined our race, the whole thing. That was the only caution of the whole race. What do I attribute that to? I do feel like the track definitely you have to be super committed to running the bottom in three and four, covering the paint, so like your line of sight is five feet in front of your nose, instead of looking ahead just because you’re so focused on being disciplined to the line. Other than that, the banking still stays up pretty high to where you’re braking on the racetrack for a long time, instead of like braking on the racetrack and then creeping down and pulling onto the apron, whereas at Vegas you stay on the racetrack for a long time. You’re definitely in the racing line for a longer period of time, but past that, I do think there’s some coincidence. We’ve been racing at Vegas for a very long time and for the last two races – the one was pretty spectacular – but the main cautions of the race were from those pit road entries, so does that make you not want to pit early to start the cycle? You want to pit later just to avoid that and hopefully having two issues as the field no different than you picking up on it is something we’ve picked up and hopefully that races the urgency for spotters and drivers to pay attention because that’s really what it all comes down to is communication.”
I FEEL THIS CHASE HAS RESEMBLED THE ORIGINAL VERSION WHERE TEAMS HAVE BEEN GETTING BETTER AND IMPROVING ON THE REGULAR SEASON. YOU SAID AT CHASE MEDIA DAY THAT IT WOULD BE HARDER TO DO BECAUSE OF DIFFERENT RULE SETS AND THE NEXT GEN CAR IS SO DIFFERENT. HOW DOES A TEAM RAISE IT’S GAME? HOW ARE WE SEEING TEAMS GETTING BETTER IN THIS CURRENT AREA WHERE THEY ARE RESTRICTED ON WHAT THEY CAN DO TO IMPROVE A CAR? “It’s definitely a cumulative answer for someone from my position. I could come up with a ton of reasons why you could get better as a race team or reasons why you could get worse as a race team. If I were to make an argument about last weekend is that we didn’t see the dominant force at Kansas that we saw from the Toyota contingent. Almost every Toyota was in the top 10 in the first Kansas race, so even if you have a decent race, like we were a ninth-place car or whatever, it doesn’t matter, you’re not gonna make an impact with that. I think the only other thing that I would add to that is no different than having practice versus not having practice. Practice is an opportunity, and the reason I bring up practice is that compared to last year’s playoffs, we are coming back to racetracks with the same tire and last year’s playoffs had a new tire at every single race. You throw out your notebook and you’ve got to start over and, unfortunately, you just have to guess what things are gonna be when you go to the race weekend and hope you get it right. Whereas, having some repetition – this will now be the third Vegas race that we have the same tire. I don’t know if we’ve even done that in the Next Gen era as far as having three races at the same track with the same tire. That’s kind of unheard of and having a notebook just as much of an opportunity to make it better as you have an opportunity to make it worse to try to solve problems that you had before. Instead of just having not a lottery reset, but having a reset that is somewhat uneducated and how that relates to Team Penske, I feel like we do a great job of working together with our teams and collaborating and having the infrastructure and the capability to make improvements and make strides and make gains. I’m not saying that other teams can’t, but I would say that’s definitely one of our strengths. The communication between our teams is I would say probably better than any other organization. When you have that and have the consistency, I see very little reason why we can’t improve.”
