Here is what drivers said after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway:
Denny Hamlin -- Winner: "Yeah, just great strategy there. Just drove as hard as I could. Just so proud of this whole FedEx Camry team, man, just never giving up. There was no doubt in my mind, maybe just a little, but they got this car right there towards the end. Wow, unbelievable. ... We needed a data point, something, a good run to kind of balance ourselves on other tracks. Obviously I think we got it here.”
Kevin Harvick -- Finished 2nd: “Yeah, just proud of everyone on our Ford Mobil 1 Mustang for staying there and having a great strategy and doing everything they did all day. First clean day we’ve had all year. Cars have been fast. Had a shot there at the end. I wanted to be close enough with the white to just take a swipe at him. Yeah, the lap cars there kind of got in the way and I lost a little bit of ground.Still a great day for us. Just hopefully a little momentum in a positive direction.”
William Byron -- Finished 3rd: “Thought we probably did the best job we could. It didn’t quite work out. I thought there at the end they told me I was just racing the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.). I’m like OK I got him, but then the 4 (Harvick) and the 11 (Hamlin) were on a totally different planet. That’s just part of it. There wasn’t anything I could do about them, so it was probably four or five to go and (spotter) Brandon (Lines) was coaching me on keeping the tires underneath it and having good exits and entries. Especially making those guys go around me on the top was definitely better. The times that guys would get underneath me was really, really hard to get back connected and get a good lap put together. The middle of the race we were terrible and we just couldn’t get in the corner at all and if you can’t get into the corner you can’t put consistent laps together. It’s nice to have a run like we had today.”
Martin Truex Jr. -- Finished 4th: “I mean, it’s frustrating. But that’s part of it here. It’s part of the whole day. Obviously, we did good there for awhile. (Crew chief) James (Small) did a great job all day with strategy, getting us up front, getting us the lead. Our Auto Owners Camry TRD was super fast out front, super fast in clean air. At the end I think we just tried to gamble, tried to gamble on beating the 24 (Byron). He ended up trying to do our strategy, which we both screwed up. Obviously heads up the other way, I think we had the best car. Doesn’t matter. Overall I’m really proud of our guys and really a step in the right direction from Phoenix, completely different mindset coming here, after today what we can do going forward. Excited about that.”
Kyle Larson -- Finished 5th: “I assume we netted out good with our strategy or better than we were. I didn’t think those guys the 11 and the 4 were going to get to us, but then all of a sudden, our tires kind of fell off a cliff there and got really slick. We just kind of had to nurse it home. Glad we got a top five after three bad finishes in a row. We will move on to Martinsville and try to get a good run there.”
Good speed. Different strategies. Fun race. Everyone at @JoeGibbsRacing & @ToyotaRacing have been working so hard, great to see it finally pay off as an organization. Thank you @SIRIUSXM for the support. Looking forward to @MartinsvilleSwy. #TeamToyota pic.twitter.com/nsfnsQnhQX
— Christopher Bell (@CBellRacing) April 4, 2022
Ryan Blaney -- Finished 7th: “It’s tough. There were a handful of cars that could kind of run up and run in traffic pretty good and we just weren’t really good enough to run in traffic. Once we lost track position I struggled a little bit, but it’s nice to win a stage. It’s cool to get the pole and good stage points. We finished seventh, my best finish here. Overall, a fun day. It was kind of frustrating because we were running so good early. I wanted to run better, but I can’t complain about it too much. Overall, not a bad day. We just have to find a little bit more speed, but it was nice that we kind of put together some decent notes and have an OK run at Richmond.”
Pretty sweet team effort to get the fastest four-tire stop in NASCAR history today. P9 n on to Martinsville. #TeamToyota pic.twitter.com/RGdOJRHAB8
— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) April 3, 2022
Austin Dillon -- Finished 10th: “I’m so proud of this No. 3 team. We fought hard all day long and are leaving Richmond Raceway with a top-10 finish in the BREZTRI Inhalation Aerosol Camaro ZL1. We didn’t give up. We started the race plowing tight so I spent a lot of time trying to change my entry into the corners to try and help our handling conditions. We got better as we ran. We stretched Stage 2 into a single pit stop, which helped position us for Stage 3 with an extra set of tires. We battled hard and it feels good to leave here with a top-10 finish.”
Chase Briscoe -- Finished 11th: “We obviously had a really good starting position, but in the beginning, we fought a lot of balance issues and I think we fell all the way to 28th from fifth. It wasn’t looking the greatest, but we just continued to get our car better. That’s definitely the farthest off we’ve been all year and to still be able to finish 11th is a good day. We got lucky and got a quick caution and were able to get the lucky dog, and from there our car was actually driving pretty good and was able to drive up in the top five at one point. We just tried the gamble strategy with the win already and it didn’t work out. To finish 11th, we probably could’ve run a little bit better if our tires had held on a little bit more, but after being 25th at one point and a lap down with about 200 to go, we’ll definitely take it.”
Tyler Reddick -- Finished 12th: “What a weekend in Richmond, Virgina. Practice and qualifying were tough on our No. 8 Guaranteed Rate Chevrolet on Saturday, but I felt like we had some good motivation heading into today’s race. I started out really loose in every corner and had some brake issues throughout the whole race. My team spent a lot of time strategizing and coming up with different solutions to make our car fast -- not only on the long run, but on the short run as well. We just didn’t have it today, but it’s another lesson we will take with us and learn from. We were able to salvage a 12th-place finish which speaks volumes about this team. These guys never gave up and we will look toward Martinsville Speedway.”
12-14-13… we’ve found consistency over the last few weeks and made a major improvement to our short track today. #6NeverQuits pic.twitter.com/g64byqBgWn
— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) April 3, 2022
P15.
— Chris Buescher (@Chris_Buescher) April 3, 2022
We had Top-10 speed most of the day… But 15th ain’t bad for a track I don’t get along with. 🤷🏻♂️
Onto the paperclip 📎 pic.twitter.com/6iR276tLYD
Daniel Suarez -- Finished 16th: “It was a tough day. I just feel like we missed it the entire weekend. We didn’t have the speed (Saturday). We didn’t have the speed in qualifying. Today was a battle. I feel like we were OK in the long runs at times, but overall, we just didn’t have a lot of speed. We just have to go back home and try to learn what we did right, what we did wrong and come back strong.”
Harrison Burton -- Finished 18th: “It’s frustrating because I feel like we were better than 18th, but track position is really hard to get here now. We struggled with being aero tight behind guys, so it was really hard for me to kind of move forward throughout the run because of that. I felt like we had a pretty decent Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang. If we keep going in this direction, I feel like we’re getting a little better every time. It’s good to start running up with guys that we should be running with and building that direction.”
Thought the track was going to go one way after practice, and it went the opposite. The guys made some great adjustments and got us a lot better, just gave up too much ground early on. Take the positives and move onto the next one👊🏻
— Cole Custer (@ColeCuster) April 3, 2022
AJ Allmendinger -- Finished 27th: “That was a tough day. The guys did all they could to try to make our No. 16 Action Industries Camaro ZL1 better. I just fought super loose in and burnt the rear tires off it. I wasn’t ever able to get a good balance. We made the best of what we could, it just wasn’t very pretty. Our pitstops were really good – our guys did a great job all day. I just need to be better, so we will keep trying.”
Justin Haley -- Finished 29th: “We couldn’t catch a break today in our LeafFilter Gutter Protection Camaro ZL1. We bounced back early from our drive-through penalty but struggled with an ill-handling car for the majority of the day. We had a pit-road issue on our last green-flag stop, which really sealed our fate at the end. I’m looking forward to getting to Martinsville and putting today behind us.”
Early indications told us it was the fuel pump, and we changed everything electrical as well. Doesn’t matter, we are all grabbing our metaphoric shovels to dig out of this hole. Better races ahead.
— Kurt Busch (@KurtBusch) April 4, 2022
Big congrats to @dennyhamlin, @JoeGibbsRacing & @ToyotaRacing. pic.twitter.com/P8DK79SOJe
Turned by the 43, had a decent day cut short. No respect given back to me when I try to give it to everyone. Onto Martinsville. Proud of my team @NurtecODT @RickWareRacing
— Cody Ware (@CodyShaneWare) April 3, 2022