Corey Heim — winner: “That was a damn handful. I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose, and I never really be in a lot of clean air throughout the day. So that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life just to make sure I focused on exits and keep him in dirty air. That was a workout. This is a dream come true. Winning at the Brickyard, that is unbelievable. Thank you so much, fans, for coming out here. That was awesome. Oh my gosh. I had a break early with the pit cycle and just executed. Made not mistakes all day, my pit crew and my team 23XI did a fantastic job with my Camry. I just had to be aggressive (on the restart). It’s for the win. I’d have to see it back to see if I really did anything wrong, but I think we both know we’re racing for the win. I think he has every right to be a little frustrated with me. But I think he would have done the same thing. Just had to be on top of it. Got a good push from (Joey Logano) to be next to him and just, man. It’s crazy.”
Christopher Bell — second: “Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be able to get there at all. My guys were telling me (Heim) was going loose and I knew that really that was going to be my only opportunity was going to be a mistake from him. I just needed one bobble. If he would have had one bobble, I was going to be able to get there. He did a great job. He showed excellent mental toughness and put together 35 really good laps, and I didn’t have the opportunity. This is a good second place. We’ve had a lot of bad second-place finishes, but this one is a good one. We were buried after qualifying. Adam did a great job with strategy to get us up there. Just proud of Adam, proud off this team. We pulled together a really good day. We’ve run second a lot. There’s been bad seconds, but this was a pretty good day.”
Joey Logano — third: “We’ve been so close to winning here for years now. And it’s great. You want to be up front at a crown jewel event. We just got there too late. We had good momentum coming into the weekend. I’m proud of the team giving me good race cars. The last run, we were the winning car that last run. We just have to get there. Just too hard to do it. Just get stuck in the dirty air. Started too far back and scratched and clawed all day to finally have a chance at the end. You’ve got to be on the front row for the final restart at Indy and wasn’t able to be there. I tried it a couple of restarts to go. I sent it in there. It was a low-percentage play but my only shot. So I took it. I lost a spot there. If I didn’t do that, I’d have been (in Bell’s spot) the next restart and had a chance to pass (Heim). Couldn’t do it. Still feel like you have to make the move.”
Chase Briscoe — fourth: “The final restart, I could taste it just for the slightest second. A lot of things went our way at the end with the strategy and the cautions. I just didn’t quite have the balance we needed. I lost a couple of spots on our initial start. Just unfortunate to be that close. Just needed a little bit more.”
Denny Hamlin — fifth: “Everyone’s trying to fight to win the race. When you’re clear by an inch, you’re going to take that inch. It’s really more on us, (Bell) and (Chase Briscoe) to just not orchestrate good pushes there. We became detached at the wrong time. I thought (Bell) was on board with giving us the push, it was just way too early before the restart zone, and I can’t go until I get to the restart zone. He said Briscoe was on him way, way early or laying back. That’s how you lose them. These restarts, when everyone know you’re going to go, it’s about the pushes. That’s essentially how I got the lead. It just came back the other way around. I maybe was in there just a hair into Turn 2, and he shut the door, but everyone’s fighting for a big Brickyard victory. It’s earned on their side, and it’s on us as a team on the other side. I’m sure maybe I could have done something different with the restart on the timing of it, but man, just getting a shove so early didn’t allow me to get my car straight before taking off, and Logano really timed the bump (to Heim). But I don’t know what we do different. Just part of circumstances, and the inside line didn’t get organized. But really proud of 23XI overall. That part-time effort that Bootie and Corey put together. Most times at the racetrack, they’re the fastest car. They’re just doing a heck of a job. Definitely a well-deserved victory.”
Brad Keselowski — sixth: “I thought we had a solid day. We put ourselves in position to have a top 10 day and ended up sixth. We had a lot of good restarts and pretty good strategy, but that’s about all the speed we had. It’s your last chance to make something of the race, and once you get about a lap in, there’s no passing so you’ve got to make hay. We had three solid days for our RFK cars, which was good. Preece caught a little bit of a break there with getting the yellow at the right time and maximized his day, and I felt like we were just solid all day.”
Josh Berry — seventh: “It was a really good day. I thought we did a really good job. We struggled Friday. I thought the guys did a really good job overnight for qualifying. I know we didn’t qualify like we wanted, but we had a super early draw and felt better about the car than what we qualified, and I think we just executed a really good race. It wasn’t perfect, but we had some really good restarts the second half of the race and made some progress, and we had some really good long run pace. Overall, it was a really solid day that we needed. I’m just happy to finally get a good finish. Finally, today we executed a solid race and didn’t have anything thrown at us to take us out of it, and also we had a really good Ford Mustang. That’s a big part of it, too. The car was really solid and that makes the restarts better, your pace throughout the run is obviously way better and just a really solid day.”
Ryan Preece — eighth: “We’ve got a lot of work to do from our group to contend for wins, but I’m happy. Derrick really got the strategy right on that one, and we just had to maintain.”
Carson Hocevar — ninth: “The first caution just kind of put us into a bad spot on fuel. The reason why we took tires was just because we were going to have to wait on fuel, so we might as well just put four on. I was able to pass three cars, which might have been the most in the field, it seemed like. When we got our No. 77 Chevrolet in clean air, we were kind of in our own zip code. Our lap times there at the end, we were way faster than most of the field. Overall, it was a good points day for this team. We were the top Chevy of the field, results-wise, and now were the top Chevy in the points standings, so that’s pretty good for us.”
Chris Buescher — 11th: • “We had a lot of speed, it was just a day of no passing. Everything was just restarts or strategy. And on one restart everything got jammed up in front of us and lost a lot of spots, and it was tough to recover from.”
Michael McDowell — 18th: “A good points day here in Indy, but that debris caution hurt us pretty badly and we had to sit on pit road longer to fill up on fuel. Track position is so important here, we had a great Chevrolet Camaro and not the result to show for it, so that hurts because I think we had enough for a top-five day, but that’s part of it. Our whole Spire Motorsports organization was fast, and we saw that in qualifying, so there is a lot to be proud of coming out of this weekend. We just needed a little bit more, but we will go into the off weekend with some solid momentum leading into the last few weeks of the regular season.”
Todd Gilliland — 24th: “It feels really good. Obviously, we wish we ran a little bit better than 24th today, but we did what we had to do. Really, that was the name of our game all the way throughout this challenge we just barely skated by. We were obviously a bit lucky, but we still stuck out these races. We did the best we could, and luckily it was good enough, just barely every single round. It’s a big prize. One million dollars going to the team. That’s just massive. Our team deserves it. They all ramped up and worked extremely hard, so I’m just super proud of everyone for what they’ve done. Hopefully, we can keep building on this and the intensity that we’re able to achieve. I saw (Blaney) spinning up top, and I thought that was at least a chance for us. I was very surprised how fast he still was after that. He was right on my bumper. There was one car in between us, but fairly close for the last 25 laps or so. It was nerve-racking for sure, but it’s great to feel those nerves racing for something meaningful, and it was cool. I think my team deserves this, for sure. Yeah, that’s true. I always remember seeing those things when my dad and when he and David Ragan finished first and second. That was the biggest David vs. Goliath and they were both named David, so I just saw that so much growing up. Eventually, we want to be the Goliath, and we want to be the guy that is winning and racing up front, but until we’re there, we’ve got to capitalize on every opportunity and I think we did just that today. Life is good as Todd Gilliland right now. There’s weeks and months and years in this series that will beat you down, so you just really have to enjoy the good times. We’re very lucky to do what we get to do, and it’s all I really ever wanted to do since I was a kid, so hopefully we can keep building on it. That’s the biggest thing to me is my team found another level within themselves even if it didn’t necessarily show on the racetrack. I think their intensity is up there, and I think it’s gonna be better for all of us going forward.”
AJ Allmendinger — 25th: “We had a solid qualifying effort, starting ninth, and ran inside the top 10 until our first pit stop in Stage 1. In Stage 2, we worked our way back into the top 15 before pitting again, but we were on the edge handling-wise by the end of the stage. In the final stage, we were trying to get everything we could out of the car when a couple of cars ahead of me got together and started crashing. I was hit from behind in the incident, and we had to pit to repair the flaps. It was a tough day, but we were able to finish the race.”
Austin Dillon — 29th: “Frustrating day for the No. 3 Chevrolet team at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We struggled with grip throughout the race. Our Chevy didn’t really come to life until halfway through the run, and the front would wake up. You could see the difference, and when the switch would flip, we were one of the best cars on track, especially the last six laps of the race. We’ll make notes and regroup once we get home. I’m looking forward to the off week and then getting back at it in Iowa.”
Ty Dillon — 30th: “It was just a rough day for this No. 10 Chevrolet team. We really didn’t have the speed all weekend. We kept trying things, but I think we just missed it overall on the package for the weekend. We’ll build and get better from it. We’re ready for a week off to recharge and put ourselves in a better position for Iowa.”
Austin Hill — 33rd: “Long day for our Chevrolet team. On the initial start, our car fired off tight but the guys kept working on it. The front tires took a while to come in. It was really slick on top of the track in all four corners. If I missed the mark by half a tire width, the front end would just slide. Then towards the end, we got pushed into that wreck from behind. Nothing we could do. Clay (Alexander, car chief) and the guys worked extremely hard to try and get us back out, but we ran out of laps. Tough ending, but we will take a much-needed off week before finishing the season strong.”
Kyle Larson — 39th: “We just had a tire let go. I wouldn’t say pushing it had anything to do with it. I was only going three-tenths quicker than I had been with saving fuel. It was just a little bit of bad luck, I guess. I’m proud of this No. 5 Chevrolet team. We qualified 10th and did what we had to do to gain the track position to get to the lead. We executed all of that really well. There was still obviously a lot of the race left, but I feel like we were positioning ourselves within the race and within the strategy to set ourselves up well to go after a win. It’s a bummer, but we’ll get back after it at Iowa (Speedway).”
