Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, June 21, 2019
EVENT: Toyota Save Mart 350 Media Availability
Paul Menard Media Availability
PAUL MENARD, No. 21 Menards/Richmond Ford Mustang — “It is a video game, so you have no consequences obviously. It gives you some sight-lines and gearing is probably the biggest thing. I feel like where I shifted in the iRacing thing was fairly close.”
ANYTHING ABOUT THE COURSE SURPRISE YOU? “No surprises but it is really good. I really like it. It adds a little more character to this track. The old track didn’t have as much character as it does now. It is a good thing.”
HOW ARE THE TURN FOUR MARKINGS? “Yeah, the track goes that way so you gotta go. If you are talking about braking points or something like that, there are really no braking marks for turn four. They have some really good ones for turn 7 though.”
DO YOU THINK THE TRACK GETS BETTER LATER IN THE DAY? “It is like any race track. As the track heats up and the day gets hotter the track gets more slippery. That is physics. This track is a pretty dark surface, so it is pretty sensitive to weather.”
YOU THINK TWO OR THREE LAPS ON TIRES STILL BEFORE THEY START TO GO AWAY A LITTLE? “Yeah, your first lap is still your best lap. It goes downhill pretty quickly after that. It seems like it held on for maybe five laps. The first lap was the best and it slowly declined until about lap five or six and then took a pretty big step.”
HOW DO YOU SET UP THE PASS COMING OFF OF 6 INTO TURN 7? “It is a pretty tricky corner in turn six. The exit of it is off-camber wide and you get push. If you can hug it a little tighter and get a run off you will be able to get inside of somebody for turn 7. It is a good passing zone.”
IS IT LIKE 11? “I think better than 11 from the standpoint that you have more time to figure it out to work on it, to do the setup. Turn 10 isn’t a real good corner for setting up somebody. It is a good corner but I think turn 6 is a better corner for setting up somebody.”
IS THAT WHAT YOU WORK ON DURING PRACTICE? FINDING SPOTS YOU CAN MAKE THOSE PASSES? “That is part of it. Trying to figure out what the car wants in every corner. There are some key places that you really have to get off the corner so you don’t get passed on the next corner. You make time or lose time anywhere here. If you have one bad corner but it is a corner that they can’t get to you because you have been better everywhere else then it doesn’t really matter.”
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE PART OF THIS TRACK? “Honestly the whole thing is really good right now. I am glad they made this change. Every corner is fun.”
WILL THE NEW CONFIGURATION ALTER RACE STRATEGY? “I think so. The mileage is still the same. I think the overall race length might be like eight miles longer but as far as mileage for the stages you still need the same amount of fuel to complete each stage. It gives you an opportunity to maybe short-pit differently because you have 20 more second lap time where you don’t have to worry about the leader coming up behind you to lap you. You can be 20-seconds further behind the leader and still stay on the lead lap, which opens up some strategy.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE RUNNING THE CAROUSEL FOR THE FIRST TIME? “It was cool. I have watched it a bunch on TV with IndyCar and sportscars. It is smaller than what I thought. I thought it would be wider, a more opened up corner than it is. It is really pretty narrow and kind of a short corner. I was thinking it would be more like the carousel and Road America. This is a lot shorter and some pretty big elevation changes.”
IT CHANGES TURN 7 DRAMATICALLY RIGHT? “Yeah, we aren’t even on the same race track as we used to be. We used to run long and do a 160-degree corner and now we bypass that and do that double right a little tighter. It is a totally different corner now.”
IS THERE ANY WAY PEOPLE COULD GO TWO-WIDE IN THE CAROUSEL? “I think you could. It is wide enough. You could go two-wide through there and with it being off-camber the guy on the outside won’t have any fun but if it is a slower car you could really make a bold move if you can maintain and kind of pinch him down you will have position for turn 7. It is a possibility.”
CAN SOMEONE GO INTO THAT RUNOFF THERE AND SAVE IT? “I don’t know if I have seen the runoff. All I see is dirt and a big hill. I mean, we use all that up. I wouldn’t really call that runoff, that is part of the race track. It is tricky to try to hit your apex right for the exit of 6. If you don’t you have a lot of room to wash up but it isn’t the fast way. I wouldn’t want to be out there.”
HOW ABOUT THE CAROUSEL? “I think we have a pretty good understanding of where the car needs to be and where you need to position yourself to get a good run off. It kind of suckers you in to picking up the throttle too soon which just washes you up on exit and you don’t get the wide open throttle as quick that way. You have to have some patience for sure.”
IS IT FUN? “I love it. It is a good change. It is fun. It is a fun course for sure. I would say it is probably the most fun I have had driving a race car this year.”
Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, June 21, 2019
EVENT: Toyota Save Mart 350 Media Availability
David Ragan Media Availability
DAVID RAGAN, No. 38 #ThanksDW Ford Mustang — “Our car was in the ballpark right out of the gate. The technology we have with our simulation and the effort that Ford puts in and getting the tires models right and track scans and everything is really amazing. It is amazing we can come out here with the new track layout that is a lot different than we have had in the past and everybody get up to speed quick. We built new cars to come out here. We didn’t feel like our road course cars were that great last year. My teammate, Michael McDowell, is a really good road course racer and I feel like I have ran okay out here through the years. We built some new cars and I feel like they have handled and have potential.”
HAS TURN 4 BEEN A PROBLEM? “It is a tough corner because you get off of Turn 3A and you want to throttle up and get down the hill and anytime you have a downhill right-hander where you are braking hard you can overshoot that corner a little bit. I have tried to be a little on the conservative side. I don’t want to make any highlights before Sunday.”
HAS IT HELPED YOU HAVING MICHAEL MCDOWELL AS A TEAMMATE? “Absolutely. Over the years I have had great teammates that run good out here. Having a teammate like Michael as we are coming to a track where he has raced on the carousel before, so he kind of knows where the passing zone is, where you can be aggressive and where you need to be conservative at. He gives you a few of those tips. Obviously he is racing against us so he isn’t going to tell us everything. It is good to have a teammate like that to help me as a driver but to also help the company to work on adjustments and gear ratios and what works good for him, I can usually adapt and make it work for me too.”
HOW MUCH MORE PHYSICALLY DEMANDING WILL IT BE FOR YOU GUYS WITH THE ADDITION OF THE CAROUSEL? “I don’t know. Ask me after the race on Sunday. I think they offset it by running 20 less laps. I don’t think it will be that much different.”
INAUDIBLE QUESTION: “It is a combination of like Charlotte and Atlanta. You are going to be on the throttle a lot and handling will come into play. These teams are really trying to figure out the fine line between as much downforce as they can. It is aldl about handling compared to trimming the cars out a little to have pure speed. I think that is why you see the discrepancy of guys that qualify really good but don’t seem to race very good. It is a very fine line. We are not easy wide open. We do have to lift and we do have to handle. We have another data point coming off of Michigan a couple weeks ago where we can look and I think some teams are smarter than others in how to trim their car out to go faster but still get it to handle. The Penske and Gibbs cars have won all those races and I think they are a little ahead of guys but we are slowly catching up. We are bringing another new car to Chicagoland out of our Front Row Motorsports stable. I feel like over the next three or four weeks you will see some different teams in victory lane.”
WHAT DO YOU TAKE AWAY FROM THAT FIRST DAYTONA WIN. “Confidence going back to the race track. You have to win your first one before you win your second one. I had won a couple of Xfinity races early on but it took me four years to win in the Cup Series. I was at a pivotal point in my career. UPS was going to leave eventually anyway but I had to win. You can only make so many excuses. We had a couple second place finishes and thirds and fourths. We were close but I couldn’t get that win. To lose it in the 500 but to come back in July was a good confidence boost for me and it was great for our team and everybody involved. That first win is sometimes the hardest.”
WILL THE LOWER SPEEDS YOU RUN HERE MAKE THIS TRACK THE LEAST AFFECTED OF ANY BY THE NEW RULES PACKAGE? “I haven’t thought about it but it feels a lot like it did in 2014 and 2015 when we had the big splitters and tall spoilers. We still had good horsepower. Looking back at some of my notes and even some setup stuff we have done, I feel like we are geared back toward that 2014-15 package. You can really go fast through the esses and have more rolling speed through the slow corners with the extra downforce. I don’t feel like you will have that dreaded aero instability and change when you are in dirty air like you would at some of the other tracks. Yeah, I think this could be one of those tracks where you won’t tell much difference. We can tell a little in the driver’s seat and I think we will adjust the setup some but I think this is a track where tire falloff is very bad, which is a good thing. We have a lot of tire falloff and anytime you have that you have discrepancy in speed and when guys run different speeds that is when you have passing. When you all run the same speed you don’t have much passing. Yes, by looking at the speed charts, there is a lot of variation from first to 25th and when you have that, that is when you have some passing.”
Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS)
Friday, June 21, 2019
EVENT: Toyota Save Mart 350 Media Availability
Corey LaJoie Media Availability
COREY LAJOIE, No. 32 GMN Ford Mustang — WHAT IS THE PHYSICAL IMPACT ON YOU HAVING DOING A ROAD COURSE VERSUS AN OVAL? “Well, your neck isn’t used to going right. My one road course race at Watkins Glen the right side of my neck was falling out of the seat. I did more to prepare my body to go right, but a lot of it is just getting used to how the car drives. I have never done it before, especially here. I have hardly any road course experience. Every lap I am trying to learn something, pickup something to keep pace with these guys that have been doing it for 15 years.”
WHEN YOU CLIMB OUT OF THE CAR ON SUNDAY, WHAT WILL BE A SUCCESSFUL DAY FOR YOU? “All four tires pointed straight and all the fenders on it. If you can do that I think you end up somewhere between 15th and 20th. If we can get in better position and get in the back end of the top-10, that would be a win.”
WILL THAT 12TH PLACE FINISH YOU HAD AT CHARLOTTE GIVE YOU CONFIDENCE GOING INTO CHICAGOLAND? “Yeah, obviously all the cautions fell our way, all the pit sequences fell our way and we had just enough speed to take advantage of that. That doesn’t happen very often, maybe two or three times a year. If it happens at Chicago, then great. Otherwise, we are going to take a 28th place car and try to finish 24th with it. That is just our game we are trying to play. If we can outduel some of the Front Row guys or outduel the 43 or JTG cars and get one or two of those guys, then that is ultimately what we are trying to do.”
“You have to put yourself in the game. We are building a notebook and the cars are getting better and better suited to my driving style. I don’t drive any different the day I finished 12th at the 600 as I do when I finish 30th wherever else. It is just how the race plays out and how much speed there is in the car.”
YOUR BEST AVERAGE FINISHES ARE AT DAYTONA AND TALLADEGA. WITH DAYTONA COMING UP, DO YOU HAVE ANY PREFERENCE TO RUNNING THERE IN THE SUMMER OR FEBRUARY? “I think handling will be way more of a key. The Daytona race in July is always handling race but it will be that much more this year because the cars are already a handful to drive with the high downforce. You would think it would be easier but it isn’t because the cars are so stiff. Handling is a key and we gear toward that more anyway, to set the car up to drive well. If you can’t drive it you are just hanging on and can’t make moves. The speedways are tracks we go fast and try to keep our nose clean and be there at the end and jam it up there and try to get a good finish.”
WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS AFTER GETTING OUT ON THE TRACK TODAY? “It was a ton of fun. I was smiling the entire time I was out there. It is different. You are just holding it down on the mat for an entire 15 lap run like you are on a mile-and-a-half now. The first time you do anything you are pretty much smiling from ear to ear. These are my first laps around Sonoma and I have a good car to drive. Hopefully I don’t mess it up. I am going to go about 80-percent and keep it all together.”
“This track is finesse. I would say Watkins Glen is the balls of steel track and this is finesse. A lot of flow. A lot of two-foot. You are always trying to position the car and get the weight of the car to be timed right. I still don’t have that figured out yet. That just comes from time.”
DID YOU DO MUCH SIMULATOR WORK TO PREPARE? “Yeah, I went to the Ford simulator last Monday for about five hours and picked up a legitimate second-and-a-half just from learning little nuances you would never think. That obviously helped because I definitely wouldn’t be 16th in practice if it wasn’t for that. iRacing was a big help too to get the edge knocked off that learning curve and knowing where the corners are at. I didn’t even know where the bathrooms are in the Cup garage because I have never been here before. I was having to ask where the flow of practice was. I had to figure out where to go after I drove off the race track. I feel like I am a tourist here but I am starting to figure it out.”
