“It was a great race,” the drivers said after Sunday’s race on the Sonoma road course.
Kyle Larson — Winner: “Strategy-wise, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just skipping laps out there. I study all the strategies, but it’s like doing my homework. I didn’t really know what I was looking at. I was like, yeah, these guys, I’m probably going to have to pit one more time. So I said, I’ve got to go out and try to get past these guys. It was a little nerve-wracking. I knew I was fast from the start, but once the tyres got up to temperature, I thought I was too fast. I’m thankful I had enough grip. I’m also thankful those guys went out and didn’t get to the point where Martin would have left me stuck in third. That saved the race. I was hoping that when he took the lead, when he got into fourth, that somebody wouldn’t judge him and I was hoping that he would miss the apex, and sure enough, he did and I had a big run.”
Kyle Larson is in the points after the 16th race of the season.
Michael McDowell — 2nd place: “The first stage went well and I was able to execute my plan and strategy, but unfortunately when I got pushed to the back on the restart, a car piled up on the escalator and I crashed into the barrier. I had to go back to pit road to repair the damage and it took a lot of damage to my track position as it eliminated my chances of restarting at the front when the cycle ended. But luckily we had a really fast Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang and we were able to get about half way back by the end of the second stage, and then in the last stage we had to fight really hard to get track position. I feel like we had the speed today, but it hurts. Finishing second hurts. We definitely need a win to get into the playoffs, but I’m proud of our effort and speed, but we just fell just short.”
Chris Buescher — 3rd place: “It was a really good day. We knew it was going to be a tough day from the start but yesterday we just didn’t get where we needed to be. In the end, my team got the strategy right and I was able to get the car pretty good. We were in a good position but we just needed a little more long run pace and maybe we needed to slip a little more together. Now I feel like there are a lot of things we would like to change now, knowing where we are and the laps we’ve gotten on track. It’s good to be sitting here not surprised or confused by where the speed is because we didn’t get that far in practice. I think we have a lot of good ideas. I’m proud of today. If you had told us at the beginning that we could run third at some stage we would have accepted it. So we should be happy, and we are. This is strong, we just wanted a little more.”
Chase Elliott — 4th place: “It was a normal road course race. I felt like the strategy was right, but we lost too much time early in the race. We got a few rows back and felt like the group we were racing against was probably the one to fight for the win. So we got behind early on, lost a few rows and couldn’t get it back. I don’t know if we had the pace that Kyle (Larson, race winner) had, but I thought we had a solid car to get in the top three or five, and we finished there. We’ll try again next week.”
Ross Chastain — 5th place: “It’s confusing. I don’t really know how the No. 5 (Kyle Larson) won or how he got back to fifth. I don’t know what the lap times were. I wasn’t feeling so good for a while on the second or third set of tires, but I managed to get back here. I’m very proud of the effort of the No. 1 Kubota Chevrolet team. It feels really good to be in a fast race car. I’ve been in this car almost every week, so to be able to pull it together and finish fifth is really rewarding.”
AJ Allmendinger — Finished 6th: “Our Circle Chevrolet was really fast, and (crew chief) Travis (Mac) had a great strategy with everything that was going on with the adversity. Overall, I think we made the most of the day. If everything had gone right, we could have finished in the top five, but I’m happy with the result.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 8th: “From the car’s perspective, it didn’t look like it. The wheel was a little bit off. I’m just saying stupid things. The tires were cold and it was really hard to hold him off anyway. I felt like I got cheated a little bit. I don’t know. I’ll see when I get back to the shop, but it wasn’t very good. A bad restart was a big factor. Then it lost some air and when I put on the second set of tires, it didn’t look very good either. We’ll go back and look at it and try to understand what went wrong, but at least we got some playoff points with the Monster Energy Toyota Camry. The fifth guy (Kyle Larson) was on a similar strategy to us and he won the race and we finished eighth. We were doing things right, we just didn’t get the restarts we needed to.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 12th: “Randall Burnett and the whole Zone Chevrolet team came up with a great strategy today to give us a shot at a top-five finish. Early in the race, I thought I had wrecked my right front, but it was just a damaged wheel. We dropped back down in track position, but the strategy helped us stay in the race. There were a few drivers at the end of the race that had better tires than us, but we were supposed to have a good day. Unfortunately, one of them hit us on the last lap and ruined our day. It’s frustrating that we didn’t get the finish we deserved.”
Ryan Preece — Finished 18th: “If I hadn’t spun there I would have been in the top 10. The car was pretty good but I lost track position at that point. It was a big mistake.”
Martin Truex Jr. — Finished 27th: “It was a tough day. I spun out early on and had to work hard to get track position back. James (Small, crew chief) did a great job with the strategy. The car was pretty good up front. I thought I had a chance to win but I got past Chris Buescher too late. I finally got past him but made a mistake and Kyle Larson was right there and obviously I tried to catch him but obviously I ran out of gas so it didn’t matter. I don’t know why I didn’t try to save any time at the end. Obviously I couldn’t catch or pass fifth. It’s unfortunate to go from second place going into the last corner and drop down whatever position I was in. It’s unfortunate, but it was a tough day and the car was good. We fought and did a good job. It should have been a good day but we just fell short by one corner.”
Daniel Hemric — Finished 28th: “We were having a good day until the tire gave out at the end and we spun out with about 10 laps to go. It’s disappointing to end the day like this after such a solid run, but I’m proud of the No. 31 team for being significantly faster than we started in practice this weekend.”
Josh Berry — 32nd place: “The race was going well, but after the accident at (Turn) 11, the car started to run strangely and I ended up not being able to finish.”
Chase Briscoe — Finished 34th: “It was a pretty wild race right from the start, guys hitting each other and everything. It was a wild day. Everything that could go wrong happened for us, we spun out, we weren’t very balanced, we had some pressure issues and then the rear end blew up at the end. It wasn’t a good day for us, especially when we needed a good day. It’s unfortunate. Now it’s off to Iowa, probably my favorite race track, and we’ll try to make up for the points we lost there.”
Cam Waters — Finished 35th: “It was a lot of fun. This weekend and the whole experience of being on a road course in a Cup car was awesome. It was really fun. Thanks to everyone who worked to make it happen. When the race started, I went slow the first few laps and then I picked up the pace and tried to pass some cars. The car was super fast. I was definitely able to pass some cars, which was really good. I think the cautions worked in our favor a little bit and we were practically in the front. Everything looked really good.”
Austin Dillon — Finished 36th: “Our RCR team brought a fast Get Bioethanol Chevrolet to Sonoma Raceway today. Our solid strategy worked in Stage 2 and we may have outlasted the leaders fuel-wise. Our plan was to run to the end, come to pit road for tires and fuel, and restart the final stage in the top 10. We never got a chance to show what we were capable of. We were racing in 9th place when we got caught up in some confusion. The #60 car hit the #23 car going into Turn 10 and we ended up three abreast going into Turn 11. The #4 and #43 cars collided going into Turn 11 and that caused a chain reaction on several cars. Our team did our best to repair it on pit road, but the damage was too bad and we had to take it to the garage. We’re heading to Iowa Speedway next weekend.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 37th: “Yeah, we hit the inside wall (in Turn 11) with our He Gets Us Camry. I was finding some grip there and trying to buy some time, but I got too close and hit the wall and hurt my right front.”
Denny Hamlin — Finished 38th: “The gearing is just a little odd for the track. A lot of it has to do with the high-end RPMs, but it’s the same as everybody else, I’m not sure. They’ll look at it and sort it out, but it’s never ideal.”
