Shane van Gisbergen — winner: “What an awesome race. The last stint was a bit cleared out, but the battle coming back through I had a lot of fun. That’s the stuff you dream about, right? I’m just a very lucky guy to get to drive for an amazing bunch of people and just execute. The day went flawlessly, and I can’t believe it. Really enjoyed it. It ain’t going to be easy (in the playoffs), that’s for sure. The first round, there’s some very difficult left-handed tracks for me, but I’m getting better at it, and I’m enjoying myself. It’s a challenge. But that’s why we’re here, and we’ll have a proper crack. … (Blaney) was amazing. He was really good at the start; driving well and I couldn’t pass him. Then all the strategies happened through Stage Two. I think it was that restart in the final stage that got me up closer to the front, and we could run a bit longer. … I really think we are building, but we have got a lot more to go. It’s just a special moment here.”
Christopher Bell — second: “Happy, yeah. I’m thrilled. We’ve been struggling a little bit to find a rhythm. I feel like the car has been good but executing the races has been tough for us. Really awesome to have a good day. Frustrated to get our butts kicked by (van Gisbergen). He’s doing a really good job. That team has it going on. We need to find a little bit more but certainly happy. It was a good day.”
Bell ‘thrilled’ with runner-up finish at the Glen
Christopher Bell admits his team has struggled to “find a rhythm” lately and is “thrilled” with a runner-up finish at Watkins Glen that flexed his team’s road course program.
Chris Buescher — third: “Yeah, I’m really proud of everybody, to bring this Mustang back here and have this kind of speed. Last year we didn’t have to deal with the points side of things, so we brought a fast race car and made it happen. We had a really fast race car again, just definitely took the opportunity to capitalize on some big stage points there early. Still got back up into second there and was making some pretty good headway. But just used it up really hard trying to get by a couple cars and get to that track position, and fell off pretty hard there at the end. … We went for those stage points there, and it still put us in a good spot to be in contention here and really still be fighting for a win, just not close enough. But to head into the next two weeks, racetracks that we’ve won at, certainly not the best place to be, but to put some more points on the board, ultimately that just comes from fast race cars. Go to the next two weeks, be fast, and it should take care of itself.
William Byron — fourth: “Iit was really tough there at the end. To have to run 18 laps on those tires in practice was difficult, and then to put 36 laps on them, I was just hanging on there at the end. I learned a lot there at the end, just with how to conserve for the next time. The last 10 laps were really difficult, but glad we could get a top-five finish. I think we had a pretty good points day. The first stage didn’t go probably how we anticipated. I got really loose across the carousel and almost spun out. And then after that, I think we did a good job. We had a good strategy – the one stop ended up being really good. We were able to have some decent pace and it just worked out.”
Chase Briscoe — fifth: “I guess it would have been that final stage, just strategy kind of got flipped. (Shane van Gisbergen) and (Ross Chastain) and myself kind of started right there in the mid pack. The restart didn’t go me or the 1’s way, the 88 was able to get five spots ahead of us before of us on the first lap and kept pulling further and further away. I thought our car was – I don’t know what the 88 had – but I thought we were probably the second-best race car. That restart just didn’t go our way and we lost a lot of track position and obviously was able to play the long game there in the end and come home top-five. Overall, a good solid finish in a fast Camry. We will go onto Richmond and see what we can do.”
Ryan Blaney — sixth: “I just lost speed, handling and where the track was at probably a little bit and just lost in pace. But overall really good effort by our whole group, and I wish we could have finished a few spots better than that. But overall really good weekend and proud of the whole effort. Good showing on a road course for us. So I think that program is getting a little bit better. So hard to be too upset about the day. Looking at the points board, we scored a lot. But yeah, just a good day overall, well-executed day and kept track position and was able to win a stage and still had fifth until the last corner. So yeah overall strong weekend by this group. Hard-fought afternoon.”
Blaney happy with result despite losing pace
Ryan Blaney felt his car lose pace toward the end of the race at Watkins Glen but is happy he kept track position throughout the day for a “good showing” on a road course.
Daniel Suarez — seventh: “It feels nice to get a good finish for this No. 99 Chevrolet team. For the last couple of months, I feel like we’ve had decent, top-10 speed. We just haven’t been able to execute. Today, we were able to execute a decent race. This team did a good job all day. Our Chevrolet was pretty good – I don’t know if it was good enough to win, but it was good enough to be fighting in the top-10 and that’s where we ended up. (Watkins Glen International) has been good to me in the past. Like Iowa (Speedway) and Indianapolis (Motor Speedway), there’s been a lot of tracks that have been good to me in the past. We’ve just had a lot of accidents and things happen that were out of our control. Hopefully we can carry this momentum into the next couple of races and get a win.”
Bubba Wallace — eighth: “Indy was life-changing. It allowed me to come here and not harp on all of the mistakes that I usually make at a road course and figure out how to make less. I think we did that. I don’t think our car was capable of winning at all, but 10th to 12th place is where we determined our team is a couple months ago, and we exceeded that, so that’s a win. I appreciate everyone on this Toyota Camry. It looked good. My suit was the best one in the game. All around fun weekend. The big boss was here. MJ (Michael Jordan, co-owner, 23XI Racing) was here, so good to get him a couple of top 10s.”
Tyler Reddick — ninth: “We were still struggling honestly. Everyone on the No. 45 Toyota Camry did a good job executing strategy. We faded pretty hard at the end there. It was good that it worked out and we were able to get a top-10 out of it, but yeah, we didn’t qualify good, and we couldn’t make any progress at the start. So very fortunate, but overall good points day.”
Austin Dillon — 15th: “Solid day at a road course for us. Watkins Glen International is probably my least favorite track we go to all year, so being able to fight for that finish and run right outside the top-10 towards the end is big for our No. 3 team. Our tires just gave up there in the closing laps. The guys did a great job on strategy, and our pit crew did awesome each stop. We will build off this good run going into Richmond.”
Kyle Busch — 22nd: “It was good to qualify in the top-five this weekend and our ECR engines showed a lot of power. The No. 8 Chevrolet was one of the fastest cars on the track through the first two stages and we were running at the front. We lost lot of track position at roughly the halfway point after on track contact and worked to make it back up and finished inside the top-25. Now we’ll focus on Richmond and racing our way into the playoffs.”
