Chase Briscoe — winner: “How about that race? Was that a good race? It felt awesome. What an unbelievable weekend. Just what an unbelievable race car. (Crew chief) James (Small) did a great job. Team did a great job. Honestly did not see this coming. Felt like I was struggling in practice and qualifying. What a cool weekend to win a NASCAR race. I kind of got lucky how the lapped cars worked out. I was struggling pretty bad. Christopher was certainly coming. Out of all the people to race against, I knew Christopher was going to be clean with me. Just a really fun race. I felt like that was about as good of a race as you can get. Run the cat-and-mouse game, slipping and sliding around. So excited to be back at Chicagoland.”
Christopher Bell — second: “I just need to replay that last run, the last two runs, whatever it was, stage 3, whenever it went green. I was really struggling with the handling of my car early on in the race, and I still had a lot of pace, so I keyed up on the radio and said, hey, if we get this thing driving good, we’re going to have a shot at it. Yeah, they made a great adjustment and got the car driving great the last run, but I was a straight away plus behind, it seemed like. Yeah, I was soft on my green flag entry for sure, which gave up a little bit of time. So just need to go back and study that green flag cycle on how I lost so much time to the first couple of cars. Yeah, it was a great day. We almost went to victory lane. Yeah, Toyotas are fast. It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it’s just disappointing when you get beat by another monkey. I’m just a second-place driver. That’s what I am.”
Denny Hamlin — third: “I thought I was in control early on, even though I wasn’t leading. I felt in control and probably got a little lazy on some restarts and things like that. Just taking for granted that I’ll just go up and there get it. Briscoe and Bell, they got their cars really good there the second half of the race, and Byron as well. You know, we just lost the balance there in stage 3. I got loose, lost ground, lost a couple of seconds. Then we went long and come out 9 seconds back, and I thought it was going to be really close to get there, but I just pushed it too far into the wall there with a few laps to go and had to settle for third.”
William Byron — fourth: “We definitely reached that objective (of a good points day). I’m happy with the finish because we maximized what we could do. A win would have been awesome. We’ve been craving that for a long time and working really hard to get there. We could kind of taste it there with a couple runs to go. We got jumped by (Chase Briscoe) there on that last green flag pit cycle, but I just didn’t quite have the pace that last run to keep up with him, and then those other guys had fresher tires at the end. Just thank you to Chevrolet and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports for working super-hard. We’ve been grinding a lot. For us on the No. 24 team, that last two ovals we’ve been to, we’ve had a shot to compete and win, so we just have to keep that going.”
Alex Bowman — fifth: “It definitely feels nice to have a good, normal, solid day for this No. 48 Chevrolet team. We didn’t start the day how we wanted to. We were super-tight taking off on those first couple of restarts. But at the end of Stage Two until the end of the race, I felt pretty good about the Chevrolet. Hats off to the entire No. 48 team. We just needed a good, normal day. It feels like a win with how the season has gone, but we just have to keep digging every week.”
Ryan Blaney — seventh: “A blue-collar type day. We were OK early, not great. We lost some track position and caught a break by running it long and a caution came out to help us get some track position back and we were able to hang around the sixth-to-ninth place range. I thought we got better from the start to the end, so that was positive. Proud of everyone’s effort for sticking with it all night.”
Joey Logano — 12th: “A really solid effort from this 22 team tonight to stay with it and get us going forward by that last run. We were caught in the middle of getting the balance right and chasing track position for most of the night but were able to hit on something during that last run. Definitely gives us something to build on and keep pushing forward with.”
Austin Cindric — 13th: “We showed some speed today in our Ford Mustang and put ourselves in position to have a solid afternoon. Credit to everyone on this 2 team for continuing to work on it all race long. We’ll take the points and move on to Atlanta where we’ve been strong.”
AJ Allmendinger — 17th: “I’m proud of the fight we had in us tonight. We finished 17th, and I think at these places, that’s kind of all we can ask for at times. There are some things we lack right now, like aero in general, that makes it really tough in traffic, and then that burns the tires up. That makes the long run tough. We fought tight and then it’d be free a little bit and on top of the racetrack. The positives are that we maximized everything, and we are kind of just keeping ourselves in it.”
Chris Buescher — 19th: “That last stop when the jack dropped before we could tighten the lug really messed us up. I was happy though at the start with my car, felt like it was all going our way. But dirty air hurt and then it became a struggle. But we’re moving in the right direction. This 17 team is just itching for a win, and we’re real close. Today we just didn’t execute but we’ll learn from it and keep at it.”
Ty Dillon — 20th: “I was really proud of our effort today. We are improving, and it showed with our speed. Tonight was the race where we probably earned the result we deserved for everything we put into it. I am really proud of our crew, Kaulig Racing and everyone. We had good strategy, good pit stops and raced hard all night. I thought we would gain more positions, but the car just took off there at the end and I got into the wall. Tonight gives us something to build momentum from, and we hope to finish the second half of the season really strong.”
Brad Keselowski — 21st: “Not a good day. We qualified well, but in the race we just got loose and couldn’t get anything out of it.”
Austin Dillon — 24th: “We were going in the right direction with the No. 3 Chevrolet here today at Chicagoland Speedway, but as the race progressed, especially in stage 3, I was battling wear on the right rear. It was a frustrating day, but everyone across RCR and ECR gave it their all. We’ll take what we learned and reset as we turn our attention back to speedway racing next weekend in Atlanta.”
Ryan Preece — 32nd: “Tough night but we never gave up. We were able to fight and use strategy to give us a chance to get back on the lead lap, and that shows who we are. We’re a determined and hungry team. The finish doesn’t show what we put into this night.”
Austin Hill — 37th: “Not the day we should have had. Hate it for everyone who works at RCR, ECR, and CT Spring because they built a good car. We were making gains with the balance. Fired off a little tight but the adjustments on the first stop helped. A few laps after that stop, right past halfway of Stage 1, we got hit from behind under green which ended our day early. We will turn our attention to next week but proud to be a part of this team.”
