Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Bank of America 400 Qualifying — Charlotte Motor Speedway
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Ford Qualifying Results:
5th – Chris Buescher
11th – Ryan Blaney
17th – Joey Logano
18th – Cole Custer
19th – Austin Cindric
22nd – Brad Keselowski
24th – Zane Smith
29th – Ryan Preece
30th – Noah Gragson
31st – Todd Gilliland
32nd – Cody Ware
33rd – Josh Berry
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Fifth Third Bank Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I watched the first group go out and it looked straight-up like a handful, and then to go out there for that run, for our group, I felt pretty good about it until the last handful, and then it started to show up. It’s got a lot of fall off, but this team did a fantastic job on bringing this Fifth Third Mustang out here, and be able to have good long run speed and fire off speed. We’re missing just a tick here and there, but, right now with where we’re sitting, I’m the happiest I’ve been at the ROVAL post-qualifying than ever before. It’s a good start.” WHAT IS YOUR TAKEAWAY FROM TODAY THAT WILL AFFECT TOMORROW? “Rear grip. You better be ready for it. I think you’re gonna see a lot of missed chicanes, a lot of penalties there. I love the track limits, the tire packs. I don’t know where everybody is at on that, but, to me, physical track limits is the way to go. There’s no nonsense. You either hit it or you don’t. I’m a fan of that, so I like what NASCAR has done there. I think that it gives us a more definitive course and helps bring a little bit more finesse back into it.”
RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Discount Tire Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It was s decent day. It was good to find a little pace in qualifying and we’ll work a little bit on our race pace stuff, but, overall, not a bad day. It’s a decent place to start, so we’ll see what we can do.” YOU FOUND SOME PACE, BUT WHAT ABOUT SOME GRIP? “I don’t think anyone is gonna find grip. It’s who has a little bit more of the less grip than anyone else.”
AUSTIN CINDRIC, No. 2 MenardsRichmond Water Heaters Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “I think it’s gonna take me a few hours to digest practice and what it’s gonna take to position ourselves well for the race. For qualifying, I feel like for the third week in a row I was one bad corner away from having a pretty good outing. It’s been a super tricky day, super different, at least a lot further off than I thought the tire was gonna be. I definitely felt like we were gonna lose a little bit of grip there, but not that much, so it was an interesting day and I’m sure tomorrow will be just as interesting.” HOW DID THE TIRE PACKS AFFECT YOU? “They changed things here and there. I’m sure it will help police the track limits, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t do a whole lot of thinking about tire packs today. It was definitely a bit different.” HOW HAS PREP FOR THIS RACE BEEN THIS WEEK KNOWING YOU NEED A WIN TO ADVANCE? “We have to win to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Coming off a good race here last year, knowing that the tire was different and gonna be the same tire as what we’ve run at the other road courses and I feel like we’ve taken a step back at those events, so we’re trying to apply what we have from our notebook. Honestly, regardless of what happens tomorrow, I’m super proud of everyone’s effort this week. A lot has gone into it, not that we don’t put in the maximum, but I’ve watched a lot of people go outside of their comfort zones to make sure this week was gonna be as good of a chance as possible to have a shot at a win. Like I said, I’m not really sure what tomorrow looks like yet, but I can tell you that whatever it is won’t be from a lack of trying.” IS THE FEELING CONFUSION AROUND THE TIRE AFTER TODAY OR IS THAT THE WRONG WORD TO USE? “Every track that we’ve gone to so far this year with this tire we’ve slowed down, so we were definitely expecting to slow down. Last year, I believe the pole was in the 82-second bracket. Today, it was in the 85’s and the rest of the field was in the 86’s and 87’s, so that’s a lot slower. And then talk about the fall off, I mean, we’ve had some fall off with this tire, but not quite like that, so I would say it’s just been very much to the extreme of what we’ve experienced with this tire change. You think about it, this racetrack, the ROVAL, has had a specific tire for this event – Xfinity, Trucks, Cup – the first time we came here, ever since, until now. Now we’re running on the same tire as all the other events, so I think it definitely highlights some of the specific challenges of this racetrack versus others.”
COLE CUSTER, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It was a really solid day for us. I felt like me having to relearn the track a little bit in the Cup car and then being able to apply that stuff for qualifying worked out really well. We brought a fast Haas Automation Ford Mustang, so hopefully that is the same thing tomorrow. It’s definitely one of the craziest ROVAL’s we’re gonna have with how slick the track is. It’s extremely slick with how it was last year, so it’ll be interesting to see who can keep the tires on it on the long run.” THE TIRE SEEMS TO BE A FACTOR. WHAT ARE YOU FEELING? “It’s just extremely slick. It’s an extremely slow pace. It feels low on grip. It almost feels like you’re driving around on an ice rink. It’s gonna be interesting. There are gonna be a lot of mistakes made, so we’ll see how that impacts the whole race and who can keep the tires on it.”
