Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, August 18, 2021
MATT DIBENEDETTO, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang — WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR AT DAYTONA IN A COUPLE WEEKS? “Michigan should be a good one. Hopefully a decent race for us, but Daytona is its own animal. It’s always wild, especially when you see guys like Kevin Harvick in 15th place in the points. It’s just crazy how many different winners we’ve had and then you throw Daytona in the mix and there’s always an opportunity for a surprise winner. Obviously, it’s good for us in a sense because the last two years in a row we’ve been leading on the white flag at superspeedway races, so me and my team do a really good job and our cars are fast at them, so it’s good on our end.”
RESIN IS GOING ON THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND, INSTEAD OF PJ1. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT? “I thought it came in right away at Nashville and made the racing pretty good. I’m super curious. I don’t have a great prediction for this weekend, I’m more just curious than anything. I’m actually kind of glad that they’re trying that because the PJ1 if it’s not worked in, it can be like ice and then you can get in it and crash, and then when it is worked in it’s so dominant that you have to be in it, so there’s not a lot of in between, so maybe that resin is that good happy medium, which it seemed like it was at Nashville, so I think that’s a good call by them trying that.”
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT HOW FAR YOU’RE WILLING TO GO AT DAYTONA TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS? “Yeah, of course, but I don’t really think it changes your driving style because the way I look at Daytona and the superspeedways is I look at them as a chess match. You’ve got to be really calculated in what you do and not so much desperate. I think the guys that race, I mean you are desperate inside but as far as how you race that race it’s more calculated approach and I think you can look at those races and you can watch and you can truly see the people that really study and really put so much effort into those races and are calculated in every decision that you make, and it has shown. You never know what can happen. You can get wiped out through any of that at any time of the race, but as far as the things in your control, myself and our Penske teammates you quite often see our group running up front and see us working together well. The Fords are always fast, but just as far as speaking about myself personally, me and my spotter, Doug, and our team, it’s not a coincidence. I mean this in a humble way, but it’s not a coincidence that we have been up front and have been having a shot to win those things and leading on the white flag a couple years in a row and in contention so often at those because we put a tremendous amount of work into those races. I go to my spotter Doug’s house and we spend a full day and separately throughout the week studying like crazy because it’s a chess match and every single move you make throughout that race determines where you end up through the end of that thing. So, it’s a lot of work and it pays off is basically what I’m saying.”
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO REMAIN CONTROLLED WHEN YOU ARE DESPERATE? “That’s a good question. I think every time I hop in a race car we’re all kind of desperate. I think my career path has allowed me to kind of separate pressure and being smart and not being in a situation where it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m leading and I have to win,’ and you just throw everything out of your brain. I think I’ve been fortunate enough to become mentally tough enough to where, yes, you’re desperate but you’ve got to separate those things. When you’re driving that race car you’ve got to be perfect. There’s no excuse for anything else. When you’re at Daytona and in the draft, you can’t just lose your head and start throwing things out the window and reacting out of pure desperation and not be calculated still on what you’re doing because if you let that pressure and that mindset get to you, you could be throwing a race win out. So, to answer your question, I feel fortunate that I’ve worked hard on the mental side of the superspeedway racing to prepare for instances like that.”
HOW IS STUDYING FOR DAYTONA DIFFERENT FROM OTHER EVENTS? “It’s quite different. I think a similarity between studying for Michigan and Daytona, I don’t want to give away everything, but I think we study the restarts a lot at places like Michigan, and I do look at those kind of superspeedwayish with the rules package that we have right now, so there’s a similarity, but at Daytona you’re watching the entire race in that way because we are in the draft the whole time. It doesn’t get like Michigan, where restarts are very superspeedwayish and then eventually it kind of single-files out and you’re just driving. Daytona is an extreme case of studying for every move throughout the whole entire race, so SMT is your biggest friend for studying. My spotter, Doug Campbell, and I will go over that together. We’ll have it all loaded up and watch the whole race from an overhead view on SMT and that’s where you can really see people’s lane decisions, what works and you can see a whole lane moving. You’ve got to watch it in a pretty pulled out perspective and it’s fun. I really actually enjoy, I look forward to studying for Daytona because it’s a fun challenge, unless you get wiped out. There are obviously a lot of things that are out of your control, but you also get to see you and your spotter and your team’s car work correlate to decision-making on the racetrack.”
NASCAR CAME OUT WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS OF HOW THINGS WILL RUN IN THE GARAGE DUE TO COVID. HAVE YOU ADJUSTED HOW YOU’RE DOING THINGS NOW AS THIS NEW WAVE HAS STARTED? “Some people may not like my answer, to be honest with you. I’m respectful. NASCAR runs the ship, so I never try to be that guy that’s like, ‘I think NASCAR needs to do this and that.’ I don’t control any of that, so whatever they say and decide this is their ship and I’m on it, so I don’t really care for when people try and say I think they should do this and that. But, to answer your question, we drive race cars at 200 miles an hour. Being scared of things isn’t really in our DNA, but I’m totally respectful of those that may want to live in a safer type of environment, and I’m on the side of pro freedom. Whatever people choose to do in life is what I 100 percent support, so that would be where I’m at on that stuff, but I will be respectful to whatever they decide there, but. also to answer your question, I also know what’s happening on a bigger scale in the world. People need to pull out their perspectives and wake up a little bit because there’s a lot happening in our world that is very sad to see and people need to pull their perspectives out.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU LOOK BACK AT TALLADEGA WHEN YOU STUDY FOR DAYTONA OR IS THAT SOMETHING THAT IS TOO PAINFUL TO WATCH? “You bring up a good point. Yeah, I’ve got to go back and be mentally tough and be like, ‘OK, let’s go back and watch’ even though it’s heartbreaking and really painful to watch anytime you lose a race when you’re leading on the white flag coming off in turn four, especially, but you’ve got to watch those things because you’re never perfect. You’ve just got to keep getting better and learn from every single thing that you do. Doug and I will talk about that and be like, ‘Alright, what could we have done better.’ How can we just keep on improving communication and every single superspeedway race we’ve ran because of watching things like that and tying it all together, we get better and better and better and we keep on perfecting it more and more. We’ll never be perfect even if you do this for 50 years of superspeedway racing. It’s always evolving and you always have to keep up with it, but, you’ve got to look at all of those instances good and bad. Pretty much when I watch the past races all I do is just critique myself. Doug and I just critique ourselves. It’s like, ‘Oh, we should have done that. Oh, man. You moron, why didn’t you make this move or jump in this lane,’ so it’s kind of funny after we’re done watching because it’s just a whole thing of critiquing what we did the last time and how to do it better.”
ANY UPDATE ON 2022? “I’m always a super open book about this stuff. That’s just the way it is. I’ve said this a bunch to you guys. I really don’t have anything solid in the works for next year, to be honest with you. It’s still just kind of some wait-and-see and waiting for some dominoes to fall and, really, just kind of figuring it out. There are some things out of my control in regards to timing and just working as hard as I can on things that are in my control, so, I don’t know. The one thing that is the biggest positive is that, listen, I’m gonna say this super brutally honest, when I kind of put my name on the line and we made a crew chief change in the middle of the season, and I was fairly adamant about it, just being honest and respectful to everybody when the relationship wasn’t quite working and we weren’t clicking like it needed to, so what I’m getting at is I put my reputation and my life’s work and everything on the line by saying that because if we changed crew chiefs, made a big change on our Wood Brothers team in the middle of the year and then we went out and our performance didn’t change, guess who it reflects on? Me. It would be like, ‘Man, we made a change and nothing really happened.’ So, that was a lot on me, but I knew it happens. But on the flip side, it has been exactly what I had hoped for and I’m very fortunate for what has happened, that Jonathan Hassler came and took over this team and our worst runs are 11th-place finishes. We’ve been running up in the top 10 weekly. He’s been making excellent calls. Our team is rocking and rolling. It’s clicked. The whole dynamic is there and our performance, if you look at it, is significantly improved. I talk about it all the time, performance is what does all the speaking for me and for us, so I’m very fortunate to have Hassler that has taken over this team and to have such an incredible entire group — our whole 21 team that is so good because going out there running good, showing that, hopefully winning one of these things which we truly have a team that is 100 percent capable of that now more than ever, so going out continuing that performance and showing what I was adamant about, showing the strength of our team throughout the remainder of the season is gonna do more speaking than anything else, and hopefully help that 2022 situation out.”
HAS YOUR FOCUS SHIFTED MORE TOWARDS DAYTONA OR MICHIGAN? “I think equal focus on both of them, to be honest with you, because like I was talking about all the studying and preparation we do for Daytona, I’m kind of in the midst of we’re doing that right now for Michigan and preparing for that and talking with the team. Really, every week I think is equal focus, especially because our team is stronger now than we have been. Obviously, those Hendrick cars are really fast and tough to beat. They’re pretty dominant. And the Gibbs cars are pretty fast as well. I think we’ve stacked up just right behind those guys. I think we’ve kind of been one of the leaders of the group behind the Hendrick and Gibbs cars, but just knowing that we have good speed, we’re calling the race well on our 21 team, just speaking about us personally is excellent, better than ever. I think we’re equally focused on the two. I’m excited about Michigan, going there. Our Fords run good and then obviously going to a superspeedway I’d say one race at a time. If we don’t win this weekend, then we go to Daytona and prepare just like we always do and be ready and hopefully close one out since we’ve been so close on those things.”
DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR TEAM WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO HIT YOUR STRIDE EARLIER IN THE SEASON HAD YOU MADE THAT CHANGE IN THE OFFSEASON OR EARLIER IN THE YEAR? “I have a one word answer for that and it’s yes — 100 percent.”
