FORD PERFORMANCE NASCAR NOTES AND QUOTES
Date: Sunday June 25, 2017
Event: Toyota Save Mart 350 (MENCS Post Race)
Series: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Sonoma Raceway (2.52-mile road course)
HARVICK WINS SONOMA, CAPTURES FIRST WIN WITH FORD
Kevin Harvick recorded his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win with Ford today.
The win is the seventh of the season for Ford.
The win is Harvick’s 36th career triumph and marks the second win for Stewart-Haas Racing under the Ford banner.
The win clinches a spot in the 2017 NASCAR Playoffs for Harvick, joining fellow Ford drivers Kurt Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney.
Harvick is the 83rd different driver to win a Cup race with Ford, and the first new winner since Blaney won at Pocono earlier this year.
The win is Fusion’s 87th Cup Series triumph since becoming Ford’s flagship vehicle in 2006.
Today’s win is Ford’s 656th all-time in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series competition.
FORD FINISHING RESULTS
1st Kevin Harvick
2nd Clint Bowyer
3rd Brad Keselowski
7th Kurt Busch
9th Ryan Blaney
12th Joey Logano
17th Danica Patrick
20th Landon Cassill
22nd Billy Johnson
23rd Matt DiBenedetto
27th Trevor Bayne
31st David Ragan
38th Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
KEVIN HARVICK, No. 4 Mobil 1 Ford Fusion (Finished 1st)
“I am so excited. I think as you look at it, getting our first win with Ford, this has been a great journey for us as an organization and team. Kurt winning the Daytona 500 and we have run well. Everybody from Bush, Jimmy John’s and Mobil 1, Outback, Hunt Brothers and everybody. It is a great day. It finally all came together and we were able to not have any cautions there at the end. Rodney had great strategy and I was able to take care of the car and get out front. I felt like the 78 was the car we had to race and then he had problems and from there we were in control.”
HOW AGGRESSIVE WAS IT OUT THERE? “Right off the bat I think you knew you were going to have some fenders caved in. That is just how it is going to go with the short stages trying to get points. I felt like our car was good enough to not chase stage points and go after the win today and it all worked out.”
YOUR TEAM IS GOING NUTS OVER HERE: “I can tell you they are a team. This is a bunch of great people that believe in each other. The last three years and even this year have shown that. I love every one of them and we are in this journey together and it has been a lot of fun.”
HOW BIG IS IT FOR YOU TO GET THIS WIN HERE AT SONOMA? “It means a ton. To finally check this one off the list. I feel like we have been close a couple times but never put it all together. Being so close to home and having raced here so much, this was one that was on the top of the list and today we were able to check that box.”
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Cars 3 Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd)
“You get there back in traffic and you’re so much faster than them you have to check up to save a mistake. You run over them and you don’t mean to; you get frustrated and get a little bit farther behind and a little bit farther behind. I saw the 42 check up and I get into him and I was thinking, ‘Well, we’ll both survive this’. And then all of a sudden the 47 was coming through him and I smoked him and hurt the left front. We were fast all weekend. With clean air and an long run, that’s always my strong suit. We got the long run, we just hard to start dead last to get it.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Freightliner Elite Support Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd)
“The Freightliner Ford was really good today. We didn’t have the qualifying fun we wanted. We had amazing race pace. That’s a credit to everyone at Team Penske. It felt really good. I just wish I could run this race again I think I might have had better car than driver today and I learned a lot. Just an amazing fun day.”
HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT AS A DRIVER TO WATCH YOU STRATEGY TO STAY OUT? “You have to be patient and have to believe in your team because you know they can see things you can’t and obviously they made they made the right call to stay out there long. And when we decided to come in and get tire we were able to move up the field quickly. A few lap more laps we could have gotten up to second.”
KURT BUSCH, No. 41 Monster/Haas Automation Ford Fusion (Finished 7th)
“I had a left-rear question and if it was going down or not. I went through four righthanders trying to make the call on if the left-rear was going to go down. I might have messed up a Stewart-Haas 1-2-3. I am happy for Kevin and Bowyer. We were about a third place car. We were hanging with Denny (Hamlin) and Kyle (Busch) most of the day. I had to pit just to make sure with the tire. We went from 17th back up to 7th. It was a good charge at the end, just didn’t get that top-5 we wanted for Monster Energy, Haas Automation and Ford. We will keep plugging away.
RYAN BLANEY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion (Finished 9th)
“It was pretty physical out there. We had a long green-flag run there at the end. There were some different strategies and we kind of played to the side of if there was a caution at the end we would be in a good spot. That is why we had some of the oldest tires out there. We were still able to make moves and pass some cars. I think we ended up ninth, so that is a good day for us. It is good to end up about where we should have. Where we deserved. A big improvement from last year so that is nice. It is a good run for us and hopefully bodes well for Watkins Glen as well.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford Fusion (Finished 12th)
“We had a pretty good car and made adjustments to make it better, probably a top-5 car once we had it going but I sped down pit road. We had the winning strategy and scored a lot of stage points. With a little more speed we maybe could have won the thing. I just sped down pit road and lost so much track position after that. That one stings a little bit. I don’t know why we sped. I can’t really figure it out yet. We will have to look at it and figure it out.”
RICKY STENHOUSE JR, No. 17 Fastenal Ford Fusion (Finished 38th – Accident on Lap 30)
“I didn’t need to see the replay, I was sitting in the seat. They were three-wide in front of us trying to go through turn 4 which never works. They were all dive-bombing each other and then the 10 got spinning and I tried to go low and she just kept coming down the track. We just clipped it a little bit and tore the left front up too bad to continue. It is a bummer for our day. We felt like we had probably a decent Sonoma car for us. Really just wanted to get out there and make laps. I thought we were decent on the long run, just trying to get there.”
THESE RESTARTS ARE SO INTENSE HERE AT SONOMA: “Yeah, they are. All three of them hit together and then Danica spun and I tried to get down below it but hit it. It is just unfortunate. We were having a little issue with our engine temps that we were looking at but all in all we were just trying to bide our time and save the tires. We saved a set that first stage. We were going to try to do that same thing there the second stage so we would have more tires left at the end of the race. Now we have Goodyear’s left that we aren’t going to use.”
