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Hendrick Motorsports swept the top two spots and is on the verge of clinching its record 16th championship.<\/p>\n
Shane van Gisbergen \u2014 fifth: \u201cI definitely feel like I\u2019m getting there, thanks to having a great team around me. Our team did a great job getting our No. 97 Chevrolet better from yesterday and I qualified badly. It was a great day. The first stage was awesome with the different strategies. We managed to stay on the lead lap and we just kept working forward. I enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamlin: Martinsville ‘came down to Stage 1’<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin explains how Stage 1 was the “killer” for him, dealing him some blows that he couldn’t recover from as he fell short of the win at Martinsville and couldn’t move up in the NASCAR Cup Series Chase standings.<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin \u2014 sixth: \u201cJust really came down to stage one with us running the no-stop strategy. Lost all of our track position there. When we got to the back, then you got all those incidents, the cautions, then obviously the 22 (Joey Logano) got the 20 (Christopher Bell), and the 20 got into us. It\u2019s racing, I guess. You\u2019re going to have that. We just lost our track position. Once we lost our track position, the strategy, it\u2019s hard to drive back to the front. Nobody else did. Obviously got some decent damage there. We didn\u2019t capitalize today on Larson not getting any stage points and stuff like that. Yeah, just the first stage. The first stage was the killer for us that set us back. At the end of the first stage, not only that, we had to restart last because we had to wave around. It was just a lot of unfortunate timing of some things. For us, this weekend, it was about everything to gain, nothing to lose. We just didn\u2019t gain enough to make it realistic. I mean, I feel confident that I\u2019ll be able to go (to Homestead-Miami Speedway) and contend. I\u2019d love to get another win before the end of the year. I thought it was going to come today. We\u2019ll have to get one more shot at it next week and see if we can\u2019t get one more win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austin Dillon \u2014 seventh: \u201cHeck of a day. Proud of everyone on the No. 3 crew. We fought all day long, making the needed adjustments and battling back when we went a lap down. Excited to be one of the seven cars to finish on the lead lap, and happy to see the momentum we\u2019re bringing to the end of the season as we look to conclude on a high note and carry that into 2027.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larson reflects on struggles at Martinsville<\/p>\n
Kyle Larson explains how being on the “wrong side of strategy” cost him dearly in what could have been a title-clinching race at Martinsville in the NASCAR Cup Series Chase.<\/p>\n
Kyle Larson \u2014 ninth: \u201cIt was a difficult race. The first stage got away with us on strategy. I assumed we were just kind of playing off (Denny Hamlin). The second-half of the run didn\u2019t go like we needed it to. We could have used a caution at some point to save us, but unfortunately, it went green the whole way and we got ate up. I was just hanging on, really. Fortunately, we got back on the lead lap in the second stage, and we just kind of had to fight it out from there. It was just hard to pass. I tried some runs to pass and beat my tires up. Other runs, I tried to save and it was just kind of net-whatever. It was just a bummer day. I thought our No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was going to be good, and I think it would have been okay had we kept the track position in Stage One. Obviously, William (Byron) and Chase (Elliott) were really, really good. I think they could have driven my car just as fast. Congrats to William and Chase, both, for the good run here. It was a good day for Hendrick Motorsports. I know you wanted to clinch it today, but is it a sense of relief with the points cushion heading into Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a sense of relief, for sure. (Christopher Bell) played the first stage right, and I thought things could get crazy and we could get damage in the back. We got through the day relatively clean. I didn\u2019t lose as many points as I was expecting to today, so I\u2019m happy with that. We\u2019ll go to Homestead-Miami Speedway and try to collect a good points day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell: Came close at Martinsville, but ‘fell off’<\/p>\n
Christopher Bell explains how he got ‘tricked’ into thinking he was in better shape than he was after Stage 1 at Martinsville before things started to not break in his favor down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Christopher Bell \u2014 10th: \u201cI got tricked into thinking I was better than I was. My team, Adam (Stevens, crew chief), did a great strategy call there in stage one to pit and got us a bunch of track position. On the Stage 2 start, I felt like I was pretty good. Adam came on the radio and said that William (Byron) was running part throttle. I\u2019m at 100%, he\u2019s at 80%. I don\u2019t know, I was pretty close on the short run, then the long run I fell off. All in all, 10th is probably about where we stacked up. It was a really hectic day. It is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ross Chastain \u2014 11th: \u201cIt felt really good to run consistently up front today at Martinsville in the Moose Fraternity Chevrolet. The car handled well and we didn\u2019t need any major swings at adjustments, it was just small little things all day. Unfortunately, we had a little blip there on the last pit stop which hurt us at the end but that\u2019s how it goes sometimes. We ended the day 11th and it certainly could\u2019ve been worse, but it felt good to run well today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael McDowell \u2014 16th: \u201cIt was such a busy day at Martinsville, it felt like we would go from the back to the front all the time with how the cautions played out. Outside of that, I feel like we had some good pace on our Chevrolet, we just couldn\u2019t find our home in the top 10. We were right around that 15-20th mark all day, but it was a clean day without a torn up race car and that is always a good thing leaving Martinsville. One more to go, so hopefully we can build on Talladega and Martinsville into Homestead-Miami Speedway to go into 2027 with some good momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connor Zilisch \u2014 17th: \u201cIt was a good recovery for our team. We were three laps down at one point, but we were able to get back on the lead lap there to start the final stage and get a decent day out of it. Really proud of this No. 88 Chevrolet team, as well as Shane (Van Gisbergen) and Ross (Chastain) for having a great day, as well. It was a good day for the organization and a great day for Chevrolet. I\u2019m excited to get to Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend and close out the season strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joey Logano \u2014 18th: \u201cWe kind of had them where we wanted them. They were trying to give it to us and we gave it right back, so just frustrating is what it is. You win as a team and lose as a team and today we\u2019re gonna lose as a team. It just stings when you do that. When we look at the last couple of weeks the opportunity was there at the end of those races to do it. We\u2019re out of it now, which stings. On one hand, you look at the comeback we had from the regular season and have a chance to win a championship all down to one race to go. That\u2019s something to be proud of, but, at the same time, it\u2019s really easy to find 60-plus points sitting on the table over the last three or four weeks. It is what it is. That\u2019s racing for you. We\u2019ll move on. There are plenty of positives, you just got me in a negative moment after just getting out of the car. Our Mustangs are getting faster, which is great. We showed that we can be in contention at almost every track now, so those have been good gains. We\u2019ll see what the new SC is gonna be like next year. I\u2019m kind of excited to see what that is, but we still have one more race to try to win and we can still get to second in points, which would be an accomplishment. I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s some kind of money involved with that, so let\u2019s go get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austin Hill \u2014 20th: \u201cSolid top-20 day for our team. We qualified in a decent spot, which helped us with pit stall selection. For most of the day, our Chevrolet was tight on fire off but built free as the run went on. Andy (Street, crew chief) and the guys kept adjusting on it and towards the end, the balance was better. We just kept burning the rears off it. Didn\u2019t matter how easy I was on the pedals. Overall, a good day for our No. 33 group. Still room for improvement but today was definitely better than the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carson Hocevar \u2014 21st: \u201cI got lost there for a second. Our car wasn\u2019t great, but my guys worked on it pretty good there, and we kept making round changes and front adjustments. We had a bad pit stop that unfortunately put us back, but luckily my guys rebounded, but it\u2019s tough to rebound here when even good cars get out of the game and they can\u2019t recover. So for where we were, just OK. We needed every advantage we could have or things to go right, and they just didn\u2019t for us. Luckily, it\u2019s still in striking distance to 10th in points, which would be good for us and good for our team. (On if his incidents with Austin Cindric were intentional) No. I mean, I got full throttle here in the
spring, and I just think it\u2019s Martinsville. I had a lot of fun, and I think me and Austin have raced each other really well. Or at least I\u2019ve been pointed by a lot of his cars have been really fast. So, no, I just think that\u2019s just Martinsville, and I think we\u2019re just having fun. \u201c<\/p>\n
Ryan Blaney \u2014 35th: \u201cWe were definitely getting better. The first stage we weren\u2019t great, but that run where that happened I thought we finally got pretty good. I was passing some cars and really running kind of the front group down a little bit, so I felt like we made good gains. The deal in three and four, I just barely accidentally bumped (Josh Berry), and he decided to slam on the brakes and end our day. I don\u2019t really know why after just a tiny little bit of contact, not even on purpose. He just lost his mind and unfortunately it ended our day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Byron \u2014 winner: \u201cIt\u2019s been a tough year, but we\u2019ve grinded and never stopped working. It means…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-955402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}