Brad Keselowski ended Saturday’s NASCAR Cup playoff race at Richmond Raceway with what he thought was a fifth-place finish.
About an hour later though, Keselowski was moved up one position to fourth place after original fourth-place finisher Erik Jones was disqualified after his car failed post-race inspection.
Still, gaining one extra finishing position didn’t make the 2012 NASCAR Cup champion happy because of Joe Gibbs Racing’s domination in the second race of the playoffs – even with Jones’ DQ.
“(How JGR finished is) definitely not good news,”Keselowski said. “We’ve got work to do.(JGR is)really strong and we’re not where we need to be to be able to beat them heads-up, but we threw everything we had at them.
“We put down a great qualifying lap, got the first pit stall, had great pit stops and got to the lead, but just didn’t have the raw speed to keep it.”
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Keselowski tweeted a few hours after the race that he didn’t “take no pleasure & seek no treasure from another man’s loss,” referring to Jones’ DQ.
I’d gladly keep our 5th if we could
— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) September 22, 2019
Take no pleasure & seek no treasure from another man’s loss, for one day it will be your turn... https://t.co/Gz9airy0Rx
Even so, Keselowski took some consolation from his overall performance.
“We led 80-some laps, so it’s not a bad day but just not nearly fast enough to dominate the race and win,”he said.
Keselowski mistakenly said in a post-race interview that he had joined Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick in advancing to the Round of 12 two weeks from now due to his points in the standings.
“Yeah, we’re locked into the next round,” Keselowski said. “That feels good. I’m proud of that effort.”
Actually, Keselowski left Richmond two points shy of being locked into the next playoff round. That will have to come next Sunday at Charlotte’s Roval.
There’s still work to do not only for Keselowski’s car, but also those of his teammates -- Joey Logano finished 11th and Ryan Blaney 17th -- to counter JGR’s domination.
But what exactly has to be done is a question mark, Keselowski said.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Keselowski said. “They’ve got all the secrets so we need to find some more secrets.”