What drivers had to say after NASCAR Cup race at Pocono Raceway

Here is what drivers said after Sunday’s Cup race at Pocono Raceway:

Ryan Blaney — Winner: “I think things are just kind of falling into place for us. I feel like we have gotten to a great place on speed in the last two months, especially. I feel like we honestly had a couple races slip away from us which I thought we had a good shot at winning. It was nice to stick to the plan today and our plan was to have track position at the end. I knew our car was fast enough. I am super proud of the whole 12 team. The Wabash Ford Mustang was amazing. … It is so cool to win here again. I won here seven years ago for my first Cup win.”

Denny Hamlin — Finished 2nd: “Track position is such a big thing. When (Ryan Blaney) jumped on that stage that we won, that put them in front of us. Certainly was going to be hard to pass. Not just enough laps of green there towards the end.

“Hats off to them. Great run. He kept great pace up there towards the front. Really hard for me to even try to get close to reeling him in.”

Alex Bowman — Finished 3rd: “We struggled with our car a lot in dirty air. Once we got clean air there in the end, I think most of our adjustments kind of hurt us a little bit; just got too free. Proud of my No. 48 Ally Best Friends Chevy team. It was a good run; we just needed a little bit more to get to the No. 12 (Ryan Blaney). Once I abused the right-rear tire for so long, it made Denny’s (Hamlin) job pretty easy to get around me. But yeah, it was a solid third-place day.”

William Byron — Finished 4th: “We were just kind of okay. Definitely had a decent No. 24 Raptor High Heat Chevy. Really good execution and everyone did a good job of just keeping their heads in it. Not every situation went our way with the strategy, but we were able to have decent restarts, especially at the end there, and just kind of maintained it to the end. Definitely a lot of things to dissect, but really proud of the team and just good to get a top five, for sure.”

Joey Logano — Finished 5th: “Overall, a top five, you have to be somewhat happy with that. We had speed there toward the end of the race and I think we could have run in the top two. I don’t know if we could have been better than Ryan or not, but it just took us too long to get the balance right. Once we got the track position and the balance close, I about wrecked it on the restart. Those spots there kind of ultimately cost us a chance to win it, but overall I am proud of the speed that we brought to a track like this. It makes me look forward to Indy a little bit more where we have some long straightaways again and it seemed like our car was decent on the straightaways this time.”

Tyler Reddick — Finished 6th: “Stage 1 and stage 3 were decent for us. Stage 2 was a bit of a struggle. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have any good restarts in the middle portion there and gave up on some points. But all in all, it was a solid day and we closed the gap to the points lead. And obviously, Denny (Hamlin) closed in on us a little bit. Overall, solid day and great points day.”

Bubba Wallace — Finished 10th: “It’s about points, so we didn’t capitalize on points, but (Ross Chastain) had a bad day, (Ty Gibbs) had a bad day. It was a nice rebound. Usually, it’s the opposite. We start really good and end up fading and giving up a lot track position. Here, we were able to call a good strategy and hang on. We just didn’t have the car. The 6 (Brad Keselowski) drove it down into (turn) one and I was going to race the heck out of him and I realized I was going to crash and he was going to keep going. It’s pretty eye-opening of how far we’re off. Going to have a good debrief tomorrow. All in all, I was trying to have fun the first stages, that’s what I said I was going to do. Was trying my butt off and here we are.”

Chase Briscoe — Finished 15th: “It was kind of a decent day. We weren’t great, really all weekend, from a speed standpoint – like I didn’t think we were going to be good enough to win. But I thought we made our car quite a bit better, truthfully, throughout the weekend, which is really encouraging. I thought we got the balance pretty good. We just didn’t really have the raw speed like some of the other guys. I thought we kind of maximized our day, for the most part. We were maybe a couple of positions better. Overall, it was not a bad day. Not a great day, not a bad day.”

Daniel Suarez — Finished 16th: “It was an up-and-down day for the No. 99 Worldwide Express Chevy team. We didn’t have as much speed as we thought we would have. We were OK in clean air, but in traffic, for some reason we struggled a lot … I feel like more than the competition. Overall, there were a few things we could do better, but we finished 16th. We’ll take that for the car we had and the speed we showed today. Yesterday, I thought we were going to be a little bit better, but we’ll go back; analyze everything and get better for next time.”

Josh Berry — Finished 20th: “It was just up and down. We had a couple of mistakes that kind of put us back, lost some track position, just got off sequence. It seemed like the car was strong at times, but overall it just needed to be a little bit better and a little more consistent to get a good finish. But we survived and had a decent day.”

AJ Allmendinger — Finished 21st: “Hard fought day. I thought we were decent throughout the middle of the race there, but we never could get on the right side of the strategy to get track position. Getting caught up in that wreck towards the end damaged the racecar little bit and caused us to lose some speed. We did what we could to salvage our day.”

Justin Haley — Finished 22nd: “We ended up with a decent finish for what we started the weekend with. We had a tough time in practice and qualifying, and that carried over a little to the race. It just felt like maybe we didn’t quite have the speed of some others so that’s something we’ll have to look into. But Chris (Lawson, crew chief) and the team did a good job of trying to get the car to a place where I could still make something out of the day. I wish we could’ve gotten another top 20, but we’ve got one more race before the break and a chance to enjoy a good finish over the time off.”

Austin Dillon — Finished 23rd: “It was a long day at Pocono Raceway for our Boot Barn Chevrolet team, but I’m proud of everyone at RCR and ECR for not giving up during challenging circumstances and working hard throughout the race to try and make adjustments. We had a fast Chevy, but we lost our brakes in stage 1. It was frustrating because we were faster than the cars in front of us, but we couldn’t do much without brakes. We’re not exactly sure what was going on. We managed the best we could with what we had and somehow salvaged a 23rd-place finish. We’ll go back to the shop and evaluate.”

Daniel Hemric — Finished 25th: “We battled a tight-handling No. 31 Poppy Bank Chevrolet. I brushed the wall, which bent the toe link. Unfortunately, the part eventually failed and ended our day a few laps early. I’m proud of the fight in our team to keep going until the very end.”

Cody Ware — Finished 26th: “I felt like we had made some really good progress with the handling of the car and I felt pretty comfortable with what we had, especially as we started to get more cautions and chances to keep up with our adjustments. Unfortunately, we avoided all of the carnage on track only to have a piece of rotor or something knock a hole in our radiator. The team did everything they could to get us back out there and we made the best of our situation until the end.”

Ryan Preece — Finished 30th: “All I know is we had a really good car, started off to be a good day, then we got put back in the pack, and that’s what you end up getting.”

Kyle Busch — Finished 32nd: “I just want to give thanks to all of our partners. Everybody at RCR, ECR, zone, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, Lucas Oil, Chevrolet.. everybody that supports us. We’re having the opportunity to go out there and have some fun; try to continue to work on our program and build everything up. It’s just unfortunate circumstances. Thank you to Rowdy Nation, all the fans and everybody for their continued support. We’ll go back to work and get ready for Indianapolis.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — Finished 33rd: “I have no clue what happened. I was in the top lane. My team said the No. 8 (Kyle Busch) somehow ended up in the grass and came across the track. I don’t know how that happened. I feel like from where we started the day, our strategy was good. The speed in our No. 47 Sugarlands Sippin’ Cream Chevy was decent. We were inside the top-20, really, the whole second-half of the race. I thought we were in good position. We were on four tires there, while there were a lot of guys on two. I was hoping that was going to pay off later on in that run, but we didn’t really get a chance to see how that would work out.”

Todd Gilliland — Finished 34th: “We fought with a little bit of brake shake through practice and a little at the beginning of the race. About five laps before that, my brake pedal started getting a little bit long. Then it just blew in the middle of the straightaway. I have never had that before. We have been really lucky. We have had some really well built Ford Mustangs coming out of Front Row Motorsports and haven’t had many mechanical issues the last three years. I thank those guys for giving us great cars. We will keep battling. Definitely not our best day to begin with and we have a lot of work to do but we will try to learn from it.”

Ross Chastain — Finished 36th: “I just flat spun out. We were all sliding around, but I just spun out. “It felt like it happened in slow motion. Yeah, obviously frustrated with myself, but can’t take it back now.”

Noah Gragson — Finished 37th: “I just got loose in turn one. We were battling and just got loose. Nobody got into me. I was all alone. I was just trying to make it until we got to the caution and could tighten it up a little bit but it just took off on me. It is definitely a bummer being out super early in the race but thanks to Overstock.com, and this whole 10 team. It hasn’t really been the weekend we hoped for through practice and qualifying and now into the race being out so early.”