What Cup drivers said at Pocono after Denny Hamlin earned his third consecutive win

Denny Hamlin — winner: “”I wasn’t really stressed about it, but I certainly didn’t know if (Christopher Bell) was going to be able to push the pace enough to hold us off. I knew (William Bryon) was closing, but I was kind of managing that gap a little bit, trying to save the front tire on my car, but this team did amazing. It’s just been an amazing run. I’ve never been through anything like this. Chris (Gayle, crew chief) is not afraid to put me in ninth and say you have to go and pass those cars now. Restarts have been a lot better over the last month, and we’ve gotten that a lot better. We just keep finding little areas that we need to improve and making them better and this is what you get. (Pocono) is amazing. I just love coming here. When I came here yesterday morning, the infield was already packed. They just do such a great job at this racetrack of giving the fans such a great experience, and that is why it sells out. That’s why I love this race track. Not only because of the wins, because of the fans and how passionate they are.”

Tyler Reddick — second: “It almost worked. When you go that long, it all kind of falls to how you catch cars. I think we definitely lost a second and a half there when we just took the tires and caught the 9 and 17. Lap down cars side by side. We definitely lost time, a couple of spots there. Everyone is racing hard for track position. Some of it’s just bad luck, I guess, where you catch cars. Yeah, it’s a bummer. I mean, if (Denny Hamlin) wasn’t the winner, you could consider this a good day. Thirty-five points just aren’t enough right now, so… Yeah, we knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this. We weren’t able to get safe points. I know we finished second. Scoring the points we did just didn’t get the job done. Restarts were good for us most of the day. We had that one restart there. We were ahead of (Hamlin), ahead of the (William Byron), (Chase Elliott), all those guys. We went into (Turn) 1, felt squishy, soft. It wasn’t down. I would have crashed if not. Have to figure that one out. In a super critical moment, we needed to maintain on the restart, and we had a terrible one. That put us behind those guys, and that was it.”

William Byron — third: “”I think this is probably the first time in four months that I’ve been able to drive the car this way, just be able to make moves and have the balance stay with me. Just appreciate everyone on this No. 24 Chevy team and back at Hendrick Motorsports for working really hard, trusting in our tools and the things we can use to prepare. I felt confident throughout the weekend, and I just felt like from Lap 1 on track, I could push pretty hard. The strategy makes it tough where you have to restart towards the back, but I felt like with our Chevy, we could manipulate and work through traffic, so that was awesome.”

John Hunter Nemechek — fourth: “Yeah, really solid day. Thankful for Legacy Motor Club. Everyone is working really, really hard right now. It gives us the solidification that we are working in the right direction; we are working in the right areas. The last few weeks, both the 42 and the 43 have had good speed. It is nice to finally put a decent result on paper, but overall, it was nice to lead laps today and be able to run up front all day. I don’t know if we necessarily have had that type of day at Legacy Motor Club yet and just hats off to all of the men and women at Legacy Motor Club. Thankful for them, and just grateful to be here.”

Kyle Larson — fifth: “It was a solid day for this No. 5 Chevy team. I didn’t have the greatest restarts early in the race, so we kind of paid for that the rest of the race with track position. I feel like I made up for it a little bit on the last two restarts to gain some track position and have a good cycle there. We came home with a top-five finish and a pretty solid race car.”

Erik Jones — sixth: “Yeah, it is nice for (John Hunter Nemechek) to finally get the result. They’ve been fast and haven’t been able to put the race together, so happy for them to get some momentum rolling. For our Camry team, it was just a good day. It was clean, nothing great, nothing really bad. Just a good day. Everybody executed well. I thought we finished the best that we could. I thought we were a little bit better than the 5 (Kyle Larson) at the end, but it was just really hard to pass. Good to keep the momentum rolling. We’ve got two challenging weeks ahead in San Diego and Sonoma that we really have to hammer through and get a result out of both of them. Proud of the effort, and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”

Chris Buescher — seventh: “Strategy goes into this race, and everybody did a good job. The Ford Mustang was strong, and we had some really fast laps in clean air. I know it’s everyone’s least favorite term, but it matters so much here. I was a little surprised that the track didn’t widen out as much as it did last year, which gave us a much better opportunity to move forward. Good work. Proud of everybody and another step in the right direction.”

Ross Chastain — eighth: “We passed some cars today, so it feels really good to be able to do that. On top of that, we had the speed in our No. 1 Chevy and the strategy worked out to run Stage Two out and get the points. And then, we were able to run long into the final stage and have a tire advantage there at the end, with the clean air to go with that. It was nice that it ran green. That was our strategy and that worked to drive up into eighth. To start 24th at Pocono (Raceway) and drive forward, that felt really good.”

Michael McDowell — 17th: “It wasn’t a great day for this No. 71 Chevrolet team. I feel like we were just a little bit too tight for most of the day, especially in traffic, and we spent most of those last few runs in traffic. We still have a little bit of work to do, but all-in-all, we put together a solid day. We just didn’t have the speed and the balance we needed to contend for a top-10. But we’ll regroup and get ready for two good tracks for us.”

Austin Hill — 18th: “Really proud of the entire team. It was a solid weekend from start to finish, and these guys deserve to have good runs like this. Qualifying 14th gave us a nice pit stall selection, and we put together an entire race, even got a stage point. The balance of our Chevrolet was pretty good, but we were just a little tight on throttle down. It didn’t need much, though. We will keep working hard and build off of this.”

AJ Allmendinger — 22nd: “It was tight overall, but as soon as I got into traffic, it became extremely tight, and it just would burn up the right-front tire. Once it reached that point, there wasn’t much you could do other than manage your speed. We will work on getting better aero-wise, because I think our speed is decent. The challenge comes when you get back into traffic, where it becomes hard to manage

Connor Zilisch — 23rd: “I’m really proud of everyone on our team. We overcame a lot today to score a respectable finish. There are still a few things we need to do make our car better, but today was a step in the right direction after the last few weeks.”

Austin Dillon — 25th: “We had a strong Chevrolet this weekend at Pocono Raceway. Unfortunately, we got too tight during qualifying and had to start the race deeper in the field than we would have liked and then strategy didn’t play to our favor during the race. Still, our Richard Boswell-led team never gave up and we did what we could to gain us positions during the race. Our Chevy started out neutral, but handling turned tight pretty quickly before trending loose later in the race. We had top-10 to 15 lap times throughout the day – just needed the track position. Our right-rear started giving out with 18 to go, and we salvaged what we could. We’ll turn our focus to turning left and right the next two races on the schedule in San Diego and Sonoma.”

Christopher Bell — 26th: “I didn’t know what to think. I was just trying to stay open-minded and do my job inside of our Camry. Obviously, when they start telling me that we’re getting good gas mileage and we are in good position, I’m starting to get excited in there, but just wasn’t meant to be. We were mired back in the 20s, and so I think it was an amazing gamble. The situation is so hard, because you don’t know if you are racing for the win, or if you are racing to finish the race, and so I didn’t stop shifting until about 10 to go – I left it in fifth – and then, I certainly could have given up more pace and fallen back and maybe finished outside of the top-10, and it would have been a net gain, but we ended up about where were going to be. Whenever the field got strung out, I felt fine. Running by myself, I felt like it was normal. Certainly, adverse conditions, when people were making quick moves on restarts or you get put three-wide, the car gets loose – those are very difficult. Under normal circumstances, I think I;m fine, but restarts were very difficult.”

Ryan Preece — 28th: “Man, just so frustrated. Early on we needed to make adjustments. After the first two pitstops we really dialed the Ford in, and we were making progress. But like so many Pocono races, fuel mileage became a factor. We were super close on fuel, but unfortunately, we came up a little short there at the end.”

Ty Dillon — 32nd: “That was a very unusual situation today. Something had happened because all of a sudden, we were off the pace. Some cars came by me and I don’t know if it was the draft or what, but all of a sudden, the RPMs come back up, and we were OK. We thought it might have had something get in the airbox, and that draft dislodged it. But it came back later in the race. We will take it back to the shop and figure it out. We worked hard but just couldn’t get the handling where we needed it today.”

Casey Mears — 36th: “We just ended up having a loose wheel, which is bummer because with me not having a lot of experience with this car and racing at this track. Looking back on it, we started the weekend way too loose. The car was numb and I just didn’t have a good feel for it. Once we got the car a little tighter every run that we ran, we got way more competitive. There at the end, that last change helped me even more. We had just gotten the car where I felt like I could cruise up there and break into the top-20; maybe have a solid day and get some points. But when the wheel comes off, you’re day is over. It was a hard hit, but I’m okay.”

Brad Keselowski — 38th: “I thought we had decent pace and just trying to bide our time. The race is going to crack open (with) different strategies. And just, some guys run really stupid races, and where they’re like three-wide on Lap 5 in a race where the strategy is going to shuffle the field three more times. You’re just trying not to get caught up in their junk. I missed the first wave of their junk but not the second.”