Auto Racing Digest

What Drivers Said: Sonoma Raceway

Here's what some of your favorite drivers had to say after Sunday's Toyota / SaveMart 350

Michael Eubanks

What Drivers Said: Sonoma Raceway
What Drivers Said: Sonoma Raceway /

Daniel Saurez - No. 1 Onx Homes/Renu Chevrolet - WINNER:

Daniel Saurez, since you won your Xfinity Series championship, it’s been a long road here in the Cup Series. Different teams, a lot of heartbreak. How do you put into words the race that you had today?

“It’s (a) crazy day. I have so many thoughts in my head right now. I mean, it’s been a rough road. It’s been a rough journey in the Cup Series. These guys believe in me - Trackhouse Racing, Justin Marks, Ty Norris. Everyone that helped me get to this point. A lot of people in Mexico: Jay Morales, Carlos Slim. My family, they never give up on me. A lot of people did, but they didn’t.

“Just very happy we were able to make it work.”

Chris Buescher - No. 17 Fastenal Ford - Finished Second:

“This team did a great job and put a really fast Fifth Third Bank Mustang underneath me this weekend. What a way to return and come back to the race track, but I didn’t get the job done there at the end. I feel like we should have had the win and I didn’t get it. We were close, just needed more. I needed to make it happen on that restart and I didn’t. But if we can keep getting cars like this then a win will come. It was an awesome run, and I should be happy, but I am disappointed to be that close and not get it.”

Michael McDowell - No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford - Finished Third:

What more did you need there at the end?

“You know, we just fired off a little on the slow side but we were really good on the long run. We started to reel the leaders in there the last five laps but it just took a little too long to get going. I am proud of the entire team. This was a really solid weekend for our Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang. You have to run second, third, fourth, and fifth consistently to put yourself in a position to win a race and we were close today. We just needed a little more on the front end to challenge. I am really proud of everybody’s effort. We are getting closer. We are doing it week in and week out so I am really proud of everybody.”

Kevin Harvick - No. 4 GEARWRENCH Ford - Finished Fourth:

"Our GEARWRENCH Ford Mustang was good. We had our minimum of once-a-week catastrophic failure on pit road and got back as far forward as we could, as usual. It is what it is, I guess. We didn’t finish where we should have.”

Austin Cindric - No. 2 America’s Tire Ford - Finished Fifth:

“I would say this weekend was a real team effort. I appreciate Jeremy (Bullins) and the Discount Tire team for believing in me with flipping the stages like we did when we probably could have taken a stage win and a bunch of stage points. We made a lot of adjustments and some bold decisions honestly, overnight. I am really happy for Daniel Suarez. To see a first-time winner, that isn’t great to have another first-time winner on the season and stacking up on those but otherwise, it was a really solid day and to do it in front of Discount Tire and America’s Tire folks who had a bunch of people out here today. It was good to come out of here with a top-five.”

Ross Chastain - No. 1 Worldwide Express Chevrolet - Finished Seventh:

Your teammate [Saurez] has been waiting his turn so patiently. What does this moment mean to you watching on as the teammate?

“Yeah, it’s Team Trackhouse all the way. I’m so happy for this group. Man, so good. The people behind the scenes that put in the time and effort to help us drivers. They’re just total team support. To be this new and special of a group, this is not supposed to happen. Another two fast Chevy’s and I couldn’t be prouder of Daniel.. I know what he is feeling right now and gosh, he’s so good. I’m so proud of him and so happy for him.”

William Byron - No. 24 raptortough.com Chevrolet - Finished Ninth:

“Ended up ninth here at Sonoma. Good run for our team. Fought hard all day and got the balance right and the second half of the race was good. Happy with that and going into the off week with some good momentum.”

Brad Keselowski - No. 6 KOHLER Ford - Finished Tenth:

Aric Almirola - No. 10 FARMER JOHN Ford - Finished 14th:

Alex Bowman - No. 48 Ally Chevrolet - Finished 16th:

Joey Logano - No. 22 Auto Trader Ford - Finished 17th:

Kurt Busch - No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota - Finished 18th:

Cole Custer - No. 41 Haas Tooling Ford - Finished 21st:

Erik Jones - No. 43 FOCUSFactor Chevrolet - Finished 22nd:

“We just missed the mark this weekend with our FOCUSfactor Chevy. We made some adjustments after practice that didn’t really help us in qualifying. We put ourselves in a hole with where we qualified and decided to make additional changes to better our car for the race. Unfortunately, those changes didn’t help much and we fought the handling all day. We’ll go back to the shop and take the time to look over the notes and data to see where we can improve before we go to Road America in a couple of weeks.”

Todd Gilliland - No. 38 Chicago Pneumatic Ford - Finished 24th:

Josh Biliki - No. 77 Pacific Coast Termite Chevrolet - Finished 29th:

Scott Heckert - No. 78 Pala Casino Spa and Resort Chevrolet - Finished 33rd:

Corey LaJoie - No. 7 GNARLY Premium Cut Jerkey Chevrolet - Finished 34th:

Tyler Reddick - No. 8 Lenovo Chevrolet - Finished 35th:

“Our Lenovo Chevy was strong this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. We started the race fifth and spent most of Stages 1 and 2 in and around the top five. We were running fourth with three laps remaining in Stage 2 when we made a green-flag stop. Unfortunately, we were caught speeding on pit road and had to restart at the tail end of the field to start Stage 3. We got mirrored back in traffic. Everyone was bunching up and another car ended up making contact with us. It destroyed our left-rear and we had to go to the garage for repairs. We made it back out, but finished 14 laps down in 35th. It’s definitely disappointing to get a finish like that after running so strong today.”

Bubba Wallace - No. 23 DoorDash Toyota - Finished 36th:

How do you put all the bad luck into perspective?

“Off weekend, that is what we need to reset. I guess the mustache needs to come off. Really just biding our time. I was doing less shifting than I was doing in practice – just trying to conserve some tire. Never had an overrev, never went the wrong way, and she just blew. I hate it. I hate it for our team. I hate it for all of our partners. We deserve to be finishing a lot better than we have been these last couple of months. Like you said, the hits keep coming. We’ve got to bounce back. There is nothing like some good adversity to pipe through to get us back where we need to be, but it’s just a bummer. TRD is the best. We will figure it out. We’re all scratching our heads trying to figure it out, but just an unfortunate end to our day.”

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Michael Eubanks
MICHAEL EUBANKS

Oregon-based Michael Eubanks covers IndyCar and other series for AutoRacingDigest.com. He previously was IndyCar beat writer for NBCSports.com's MotorSportsTalk site. He can be reached at MichaelEubanks94@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @MEubanks_writer.

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