Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Road America Cup Qualifying | Saturday, July 2, 2022
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
6th – Chris Buescher
7th – Austin Cindric
8th – Michael McDowell
10th – Kevin Harvick
11th – Ryan Blaney
14th – Chase Briscoe
15th – Cole Custer
21st – Joey Hand
22nd – Harrison Burton
25th – Todd Gilliland
27th – Joey Logano
28th – Aric Almirola
30th – Kyle Tilley
32nd – Cody Ware
33rd – Brad Keselowski
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Mustang — Finished 6th
“I am proud of the effort of everybody through this week. We had a lot of speed off the truck again. We are just looking for a little bit more. It is a good thing to be running up front and be that close and try to find a squeak more of speed. It is tight up here. That is a good thing. I am proud of everybody. We are going to stay after it and we will be ready for the next one.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang — Finished 7th
“I still love this race track. I wish we would have been a little bit better. It felt like we had a really solid day and were able to make our way through the field after staying out for stage points. I wish we could have gotten that stage win. I feel like I was probably a mistake away by myself in that first stage to get that win, so that one is on me. Otherwise, it was a really solid weekend by the team. I am happy with three top-10’s in a row on three different styles of race tracks. I am proud of that. We will keep moving forward and figure out what we need to have race winning speed in these places but we were really solid and some days that is all you can ask for.”
WERE YOU SURPRISED THE RACE WENT CAUTION FREE? “It does and it doesn’t. I feel like some of the things about this car certainly make it more challenging to overtake and more challenging to make mistakes. I feel like there are a lot of cars that were really close and strategy was important and tire falloff was important. YOu get separation but you still have comers and goers, which is what this track is all about. Unless somebody gets stuck in the gravel trap, I guess these cars are so high off the ground you probably aren’t going to get stuck like you would before. It was definitely a physical day and always great to come up here.”
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang — Finished 8th
“It was a solid effort but not what we hoped for. We seemed to lose the rear tires a bit too much as the run went on and as we tried to dial rear grip into it we just lost a little bit of turn and then it kind of compounded. We didn’t quite have the speed we needed to run up in the top-five and challenge and kind of slid back a little bit. All in all it was a solid day and we executed well. It is nice to be disappointed with an 8th place finish but our expectations have gone up and we want to challenge for wins. We just needed a bit more. I probably need to be a bit more aggressive in practice of trying things but with that limited practice I am so afraid of dialing us out. We just have a little more to gain and I think we will be in the right direction for the Glen and we have been fast on the ovals too. It should be a good month for us coming up. We will take a top-10 and build on it but ultimately it is not what we hoped for.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards Ford Mustang — Finished 11th
“I think we didn’t start off very good. I thought it would be a long day and we just kept tightening our car up and got better and better. I was pretty happy with our speed at the end of the race. It was nice to win a stage and come from the back and end up how we did, it was something to be proud of.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang — Finished 14th
“Our HighPoint.com Mustang was good in the first stage. We really needed some more playoff points and those extra stage points as the regular season winds down, so staying out for the stage win helped with that. But once we were fighting back in traffic things really changed. It was super hard to pass and we started to struggle. It was more difficult than I thought it would be to overcome that but I’m proud of the guys for sticking with it and trying to get as much out of it as we could. I think we’ve got a really good setup for the next few road courses.”
