Christopher Bell — Winner: “How about that one, race fans? Oh, my gosh, man. Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, you’re like, All right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow. It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really, really hard there coming to the line. JGR ran 1-2, how about that?”
Denny Hamlin — Second: “Yeah, great job out of this team. Got better and better as it went. Pit crew did a phenomenal job to keep us in the game when we had a bad stop in the middle. They made up for it at the end. First time we were able to get some clean air all day. Obviously our car was really fast. Really kind of wanted it to stay green there because I thought in the long runs is really where we were going to be able to excel, especially on these tires. But we got a good restart. The 5 really gave me a great push on the frontstretch on the restart, down the backstretch. I had kind of position on the 20. I knew he was going to ship it in there. He had to use me. He could. Obviously we just kind of ran out of racetrack there. Great finish. Great job by the whole Joe Gibbs team to give us some fast cars.”
Kyle Larson — Third: “I felt like that was my only hope. Yeah, I felt like I made the correct decisions there. I don’t know, I’d have to look back at it. I thought being patient to try and keep them side by side down the back was good. I could have shot to the bottom, but I felt like I would have wrecked everybody there. Yeah, just kind of gave ourselves a shot for them to maybe get into each other and us squeak by. Good to finish third. I felt like we were going to be lucky to finish top 10. Pit crew did a great job there that last stop. They made good adjustments compared to our first option tire (in) round two. Yeah, got better but need to be a lot, lot better to have any shot to win here in the fall when it really matters. Great to get a solid finish in here. It’s been kind of a struggle for us here to start the year. Happy about that. Go to Vegas and try to do good again.”
Josh Berry — Fourth: “I hate that we had that mistake on pit road with the left rear that kind of knocked us back, but we were able to fight back up there and had some really good restarts. I felt like myself again. It is amazing what you can do when the car is handling like that. It was really solid and staying underneath me. I am super proud of these guys. I am proud of everyone on this 21 team. Our car was really solid. It wasn’t mistake-free. We had an issue on pit road with the left rear, but we got backed up and got the wheel tight. We had some really good restarts. We had one toward the end that didn’t go our way, but pretty much every one of them we were able to move forward and fight and claw. It is a credit to everyone on the 21 team and Ford and Wood Brothers Racing and Team Penske. It was a lot of fun. I am just honestly so excited. This racetrack was pretty tough for me last year, and these guys have great cars, without a doubt here. That was proven again today and we executed pretty solidly and was able to get a good finish which is really good.”
Chris Buescher — Fifth: “I am really proud of this team to take this Ford Mustang and get a top five out of it. It was a fight today. I felt like we were there on the yellows and kept getting run all over by reds and I was just sitting there waiting our turn. We finally put them on and ended up in a place where it was kind of the same time as everybody else. We didn’t see the big movement, but we had them on at the end when a lot of others ran out. It made it interesting. I am still a proponent of a single tire when we come to a weekend, but Goodyear did a great job. That red tire was a lot of fun.”
William Byron — Sixth: “Yeah, unfortunately that caution just came out right when we were on pit road. Here at Phoenix, you can’t get away with losing a lap. It was just an unfortunate situation there. It was an aggressive call, and I thought that it was going to set us up for a shot. It was just crazy there at the end. We restarted 21st and got up into the top-10 pretty quickly. I feel like we probably used up a lot of tire on the reds to get the last few spots, so it was hard to get much more. I’m happy with it. I feel like the No. 24 Chevy team put together a good weekend. We learned a ton, and we got a solid finish, so that’s something to be proud of.”
Kyle Busch — Eighth: “We had an OK day with the No. 8 Chevy. We were probably a 15th-place car on yellow (tires) and probably an eighth-place car on reds. We never really got to see our reds play out; get a long run on them. So it’s hard to say with that, but we were able to make up some really good spots on restarts with them. That saved our day. I would say that the step that we made from last year to this year was a really good step. Another major step like that, we can be a contender for racing for the win. There was a big change in how our car drove and felt and the grip that it gave, but not enough of what I needed.”
Zane Smith — Ninth: “Man, since practice I knew I had a really good Mustang. In qualifying, I feel like we all kind of missed it at FRM but I knew our Fords were really good on the long run and it paid off here. It was a lot of fun today. I fought a couple of mistakes throughout the day. Top 10 finishes are always great. It is something to build on and a good track to be good at. I am just happy with the performance all weekend, honestly. (The option tires) are a lot of fun and it made it probably the most fun Phoenix race I feel like I have been to. Just a good weekend for us and something to build off of, and I am really ready for this year.”
Michael McDowell — 27th: “Really unfortunate day for everybody at Spire Motorsports. We had three really fast cars and not a whole lot to show for it. Not the day we wanted, but really proud of the weekend and the effort. Really proud of the speed we brought. We had a flat tire on the No. 71 Chevy there; got in the wall, bent the toe link and had to work on it. It made for a long day, but we will rebound and get ready for Las Vegas.”
Ryan Blaney — 28th: ““It just blew up. It started with about 100 to go, and I thought it was going to make it to the end, but it didn’t. It was a hard-fought day. We could never get going on restarts. Long runs I felt okay but just kind of lacked a little bit and then we were just having trouble with the engine before it completely grenaded. We were going to get a decent finish out of it, but obviously not.”
Bubba Wallace — 29th: “Brakes blew out. Unfortunate. I didn’t have any sign leading up to that last restart there. Just noticed on lap three or four that the pedal just traveled further than it had just by a little bit. So turned on my fans, came back an that was it. Bummer. We didn’t have the best of midrace, but I felt like we finally got our big break, cracked the top 10 and was going to make something of it. Trying to survive and it just got ripped out from under me. It’s unfortunate. I hate it. We’ve had such a strong start to the season, but all in all, you can be pissed off about it, but it is what it is. The team executed. I felt like I executed all day. Just wasn’t in the cards. So we’ll go back home and fly back out here to go to Vegas and go have some fun.”
Shane van Gisbergen — 31st: “They were racing four-wide. I hoped over a wheel and there wasn’t much I could do. I tried to pull it up and got a bit loose. We were getting better and better as the race went on. I felt like the No. 88 Chevy was getting better, too. It’s a shame we’re still not out there learning. I really like the soft tire. They just give you so much more feel. It feels like they should probably be the primary tire, and they should make a softer one. The cars move around and you have so much pull going on, but yeah, it is what it is. On the yellow, we kind of struggled a little bit.”
Justin Haley — 34th: “I knew (Ty Gibbs) was coming across my nose and I just tried to lift. It honestly just looked like a racing deal. I’m not sure that anyone did anything wrong. We were just racing four-wide and we all just ran out of room there on exit. I hate that it tore up two Spire Motorsports Chevys, but there’s a lot we can take from today and we’ll move onto Las Vegas (Motor Speedway). I wish I would have been on the option tires the whole time, and everyone else would have been on the primaries. They just make you feel like Superman. I like the tire. I honestly feel like we should go to it everywhere. They make the cars drive a lot better. I don’t know if that’s what you want, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
Chase Briscoe — 35th: “That was about the biggest you can crash at Phoenix. It was a big one. Yeah, just on that restart, we were all kind of three, four wide. And I just climbed over (Justin Haley’s right front). Yeah, unfotrtunately, we were able to go to the tail and drove back up to 13th and felt really good about our Toyota. I got myself in a bad spot, and I was probably trying to fade a little more left just knowing that (Carson Hocevar) was on my right rear and climbed over (Haley’s) right front. Unfortunate but try to learn from it and not do that again and go on to Vegas.”
Carson Hocevar — 36th: “It’s frustrating. The car was fast. I felt like our Chevrolet was pretty good, we just got behind on a pit stop and just playing the tire game. Shouldn’t have been back there was what the result of it was, unfortunately. We had track position, the way that cycle worked out, we were just back there in the mess. Unfortunate, but our Spire cars are fast, and I’m sure they’ll be fast again.”
Riley Herbst — 37th: “It all happened in front of me. Just kind of biding my time, learning, continue to work and build. They were wrecking off Turn 2, and I tried to avoid it to go low and just caught in it at the last second. Frustrated for sure but get to go home next weekend and hopefully have a good run.”
