Ford Performance Results:
1st – Joey Logano
3rd – Ryan Blaney
12th – Michael McDowell
14th – Todd Gilliland
19th – Noah Gragson
22nd – Harrison Burton
23rd – Chase Briscoe
26th – Chris Buescher
27th – Justin Haley
28th – Austin Cindric
30th – Ryan Preece
31st – Cam Waters
32nd – Josh Berry
35th – Brad Keselowski
36th – Kaz Grala
JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Autotrader Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW MANY TIMES WILL YOU REPLAY HOW GOOD THAT LAP FELT? “You always look at what went wrong first, or at least that’s my mentality. Unfortunately, I look at the bad parts. Most of it was pretty good. I got a little loose up in turn two and probably left a little bit out there, but it’s hard to hit a perfect lap every corner. If you can average it all out to be pretty good, it works out. It was great to see the Autotrader Mustang having some speed here in Sonoma. It didn’t seem too bad in race trim, either, so hopefully we can turn this into a victory tomorrow.”
WHAT CAN YOU FORECAST FOR RACE CONDITIONS TOMORROW? “The race is gonna be a lot different than what it was in the past here. You think about what it used to be here with a lot of tire wear. Now, the tires seem to last fairly long, so that can adjust the strategy quite a bit from what it used to be here. There are a lot of different options for the crew chiefs to try to make up their mind on how to play out the race and time will tell.”
JOEY LOGANO POLE-WINNING PRESS CONFERENCE
TALK ABOUT YOUR POLE LAP. “It felt good. It’s nice to have a practice yesterday and to be able to work on your car, but even more importantly to have the time last night to review a lot and talk about it and think about it to try to make some good decisions for today and for tomorrow. That’s fun. You kind of miss that part. We used to do that every week, so it’s fun to kind of not be so rushed and actually look at some of the details. We were able to make some good decisions, obviously, with our Autotrader Mustang and show up with some speed today in qualifying trim. I don’t think we’re that bad in race trim either. I think we were pretty good, so I’m looking forward to the race. I think the last time we got the pole here, I think it was 15 years ago or so. It was a long, long time ago with a lot of races in between, so it feels good to at least be starting back up front here.”
DOES IT FEEL LIKE YOUR TEAM HAS TURNED A CORNER? “I do feel like we’re making gains, for sure. This short track package, which is the road course package as well, seems to suit us a little bit better for whatever reasons those are. You can guess as good as me, but it seems like any time we can get off the gas pedal our Penske cars are running a little bit better. We definitely have work to do on the mile-and-a-halves. I don’t think we’ve made many gains there yet, but we’ve got to capitalize on the next few weeks when you look at tomorrow, for sure, but also Iowa, New Hampshire – some good racetracks coming up.”
THE SONOMA POLE WAS IN 2011, BUT WHAT PART OF THE LAP WAS BEST FOR YOU? “My first lap, I screwed up 11 and overcooked it. It was cooked just right the next time, so that was good. My turn two wasn’t that good, actually. I got loose transferring the weight from left to right a little bit too aggressively and busted the back out a little bit. My 3A was really good. My four was mediocre. My seven was pretty decent, I thought. My esses were really good, so all of that together seemed to work out pretty good for us.”
DID YOU FEEL ANY DIFFERENCE IN TIRE FALL OFF IN JUST A COUPLE OF LAPS? “No, not yet. We kept going faster. I mean, all but the last run was faster. We ran two runs the first round. We got faster in the second round, and then we went out for the third time and went faster again. It wasn’t until the last run that we slowed up a little bit. I don’t think anyone knows exactly what the tire wear is gonna look like yet in the race. I guess we’re all pretty curious to see what that is and we’ll all figure it out together.”
THE FIELD IS SO CLOSE. IS THIS A PRODUCT OF THE NEW PAVEMENT? WILL IT BE AS RACY TOMORROW? “I think the fall off, don’t expect it. It’s a repave. Never, ever have we had a repave and the tires fall off. If you want the old Sonoma, it’s buried underneath here somewhere. That’s gone. It may come back years down the road as the asphalt wears in, but the racing will be different. Will it be better or worse? I don’t know. In ways you can argue it could be better because all the drivers are gonna be making qualifying laps every single lap, whereas before you had to pace yourself a little bit more. When everyone is running 10-10s all day long, more mistakes are likely to happen. There might be some interesting moments in the race because of that. The strategy will be different than what it’s been in the past because there’s not tire fall off to speak of, so fuel mileage is probably the name of the game. With all that said, I think the most anyone ran yesterday was like 10 laps, so I don’t think any of us really, really know for sure. A lot of things can change as the track races.”
HOW WERE YOUR NERVES ABOUT THE LAP AS FAR AS ESTABLISHING A TIME? “It’s the same feeling you have qualifying every week. It’s a very intense moment. Nervous, I wouldn’t say nervous – you just get ultra-focused. You try to put yourself in a mode to where you have nothing distracting you from hitting your whole lap. There’s a lot of corners here to hit and you’ve just got to try to average them out to be really good. You may have one corner that’s a little bit off, but that doesn’t mean it’s over. For me, that was turn two on our lap, but the rest of them were really good so it worked out. It’s intense. Your heart rate is maxed out for one lap. For the human body to do that every lap, I think it’s impossible but just the focus it takes – at least for me to go fast. I think every driver is probably a little bit different. Some guys are a little bit more relaxed in the car, but I’ve never been that guy.”
DOES THE REPAVE CHANGE YOUR MARKS? “The braking points are quite a bit deeper, especially into 11 from where we used to brake to now is like, ‘Whoa.’ And the amount of throttle that you carry is a lot more, the aggression back to gas is way more. You used to really have to feather it back to wide-open because it would be really easy to spin the tires, but now you can hammer it pretty hard. You can definitely go to the gas before you feel like you should, but that’s where the lap time is at it seems like.”
CAM WATERS, No. 60 AUKUS/BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP THAT QUALIFYING SESSION? “It was a lot of fun and super fast-paced. On the first run I was just trying to work out what kind of grip I had and probably left a little bit on the table because we made some changes overnight and the car was different. We couldn’t get anymore out of it on the last run, but I had so much fun. The car was a lot nicer today. We’ll just see how we do in the race now.”
YOU’RE STARTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PACK, SO WHAT CAN YOU PREPARE FOR ON THIS COURSE? “I’ll be starting right in the middle of the chaos, so I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’m sure it’s gonna be pretty full-on, but it’s gonna be a lot of fun. Hopefully, there is some passing and hopefully there’s a bit of tire deg and we can go forward.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS COURSE OVERALL? “The course is awesome. There’s a lot of undulation. I feel like there are a few passing opportunities and it’s got a little bit of everything. I love it.”
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