Ford Performance Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series – Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500
Atlanta Motor Speedway | Sunday, March 21, 2021
FORD FINISHING RESULTS:
1st — Ryan Blaney
7th — Chris Buescher
10th — Kevin Harvick
11th — Matt DiBenedetto
13th — Ryan Newman
15th — Joey Logano
18th — Cole Custer
19th — Michael McDowell
20th — Aric Almirola
22nd — Austin Cindric
23rd — Chase Briscoe
27th — Anthony Alfredo
28th — Brad Keselowski
34th — BJ McLeod
36th — Timmy Hill
37th — Josh Bilicki
BLANEY GIVES FORD FIFTH STRAIGHT CUP WIN AT ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY
- Ryan Blaney piloted his No. 12 Ford to victory today at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
- The victory marks his fifth career NCS win and gives Ford its fifth straight Cup win at AMS.
- Today’s win is Ford’s 706th all-time in NASCAR Cup Series competition.
- Of Team Penske’s 80 NCS wins with Ford, 53 have come since rejoining Ford in 2013.
FORD PERFORMANCE QUOTES
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 BodyArmor Ford Mustang — VICTORY LANE QUOTES
YOUR CAR CAME TO LIFE AT THE END. “Gosh, we had a great long run car all day. It took us a little bit to get going. I was pretty free all day, so we made a really good change to tighten me up where I needed it and it looked like Kyle was getting loose and I’m happy it worked in our favor that there was a couple long runs at the end that kind of let us get there. He got slowed up behind some lap traffic, but I’m really proud of this whole BodyArmor, Menards No. 12 group. We’ve been good this year and had some bad breaks and it’s nice to close out a race like that. That was awesome.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN THE BOOTH YESTERDAY THAT HELPED TODAY? “Definitely. I might have to start doing it every week I guess now, but thank you to all the fans for coming out. It’s awesome to see fans again. It’s really cool. Thank you BodyArmor, Menards, Ford, DEX Imaging. We couldn’t do it without them and looking forward to sliding around a little bit more next week at Bristol.”
IT LOOKED LIKE THE 5 WAS THE CAR TO BEAT. “The 5 was crazy fast there the whole race and then we started closing in. Our car got a lot better there. I think towards the end of stage two it was starting to get there and then before that last green flag stop it really came to life and he was starting to struggle getting really free. I don’t know if the track changed or what, but we were just tightening it up all day. I’m happy there were a couple long runs at the end. That’s where our strong suit was and we capitalized on it. I can’t thank BodyArmor, Menards, DEX, Advance Auto Parts enough for what they do and Ford. It’s cool to get a win at Atlanta. I love this place. It’s nice to have a good run here and win.”
HOW NICE TO WIN IN FRONT OF FANS HERE TODAY? “It’s great. I was able to see them in the Fox booth yesterday to look down on them and it’s just awesome. It’s great that fans are finally able to come back and I’m looking forward to when they can be in the garage again and we can interact with them, but just the energy getting out of your car. That’s the big thing that I miss and thank you to everybody who came out on this beautiful Sunday.”
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang
“It was a good day. I’m pretty happy with that from start to finish. We were able to fire off and make some progress and head forward and stay with it all day. We didn’t really have to work on much. This car has a lot of similar characteristics to our Homestead car and definitely feel pretty good about these low grip racetracks. We’ll keep working on it and try to tweak on that a little bit and get it to a top five and ultimately winning a race.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang
“Not the day we were looking for with our Shell-Pennzoil Mustang. We fought the handling most of the race and kept adjusting on it. We’ll keep working on the 550 tracks and we’ll get stronger. Congrats to Blaney and the 12 team, that’s a great win.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 33 Pirtek Ford Mustang
“I would say that having all the fenders on here and getting as much green flag running as I did today definitely taught me a lot and learned a lot. That was my goal, picking this race, getting long green and learning all I can about these cars in tough situations. I feel like our strength was definitely on the long run and we just lacked track position and went too many laps down too early. We had to fight that a lot of the day and just little things here and there and that’s where it counts in this series. I’m looking forward to the next one. Hopefully, we’ll find some track position and try and get closer to the top 10.”
DID YOU TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FOLLOW SOME VETERANS AND LEARN AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE RACE? “I’d say whenever I was getting lapped I was learning how slow I was. I don’t know how much I learned or not. Early in the runs I feel like our biggest weakness was we just seemed to be too slow with as much on-throttle time as I was getting. I definitely seemed to learn some things there. It paid dividends for me on the long run, but just not enough to overcome where we started.”
