Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano helped salvage Sunday’s season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 for Ford, finishing third and fourth, respectively.
While Chris Buescher claimed the Xfinity Series championship Saturday for Ford, when it came to Sunday’s final round in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, three Chevrolet drivers and one Toyota driver were in the championship-deciding field, shutting out Ford drivers from a race in which its manufacturer was the entitlement sponsor.
But the two Penske Racing teammates helped show that Ford still has a lot of power under the hood in Sunday’s race.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t win and that’s what we wanted to do,” said Logano, who started second and led 72 laps of the 267-lap race.
“We had a few good runs and made an adjustment that just took it out of the track and by the time we got it back we lost too much track position. We had a bad pit stop under green and lost more there, so it was too little, too late. We couldn’t redeem ourselves after a couple mistakes.”
As for Keselowski …
“The last four races we have run pretty strong – maybe not quite as strong at Phoenix as we wanted – but three of the four races we were really strong and we just didn’t have enough to close it at the end,” he said after leading a race-high 86 laps.
“I was really proud of my team, really happy with what they were able to give me and we were able to take a run at it. We just didn’t quite have enough at the end on that final restart to hold those guys off.”
Race winner and series champion Kyle Busch was a bit surprised that Keselowski took the inside line on the final restart six laps from the finish.
Keselowski said; “I don’t really know if there was a right one or a wrong one to be honest. We just weren’t fast enough, and I don’t think it would have mattered either way.”
As for the other Ford drivers in the field, it was likely not the way they wanted to end their respective seasons.
Here’s how they wound up:
Greg Biffle (15th), Ryan Blaney (17th), Trevor Bayne (18th), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (22nd), Sam Hornish Jr. (25th), Cole Whitt (28th), Brett Moffitt (31st), David Gilliland (32nd), Michael McDowell (33rd), Josh Wise (39th) and Aric Almirola (41st).
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