DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 3rd
Toyota Motorsports
How did your car handle in qualifying? “Still not there. The time might look okay, but we still have some work to do. The most encouraging thing is that as bad as this thing is handling right now, we got some speed out of it. That’s opposite of where we usually are. I have no doubt that tomorrow we’re going to fine tune this thing.”
How was your qualifying lap? “We knew the cloud cover was going to help us out. We had good speed all day, but we just haven’t had a great handling race car and it showed. We were all over the race track there. I’m very happy with the time and we will start near the front and that is a good starting spot for Sunday.”
How important are the practice sessions tomorrow? “It’s going to be encouraging for us knowing that we have such a fast race car right now and we have a lot of room for improvement.”
How important was the cloud cover on your qualifying lap? “About three or four of us right there had a pretty good cloud cover for a few minutes and it really helps here. I knew when I ran my lap that it wasn’t very good, but the time turned out pretty good. It’s been the story of most all day that our car has had a lot of speed, but not handled the way we want it so the good news is that we have two practices to work on that part of it. Usually I’m the other way around and don’t know where I’m so slow.”
How do you feel about Sunday’s race? “We’ve had really good races here and we’ve had to come back from adversity the last 20 laps of the last two races to win, so I don’t want to be in that position again. Hopefully we have a smooth day on Sunday, but we need 10 more points and that’s our goal.”
Do you feel like this race is a gauge of where you’re at right now? “Right now or starting at Indy is where everyone starts to bring out the cars that they’ve prepared for the season and for the Chase. I think it always comes in waves — the performance and right now I feel like it’s a very important time for us to get some more bonus points before the Chase. Hopefully, we looked at the race tracks coming up and feel like we should win at least two of them in the next five or so.”
JOEY LOGANO, No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 17th
How did your race car handle in qualifying? “It was free. We were real loose in qualifying trim in practice too and I just don’t think we tightened it up quite enough. We’re close, we just needed a little bit more. I think if we were a little bit tighter we definitely would have had something more to work with. We’ll remember that for next time I guess.”
How much do you lean on Denny Hamlin to get around Pocono? “I leaned on him a little bit after first practice. I went and saw him and just picked his brain to see what he was doing. He’s doing some different things down in turn three so I just wanted to pick his brain a little. He helped me out a lot here last time I was here too.”
MARCOS AMBROSE, No. 47 Kroger/Clorox Toyota Camry, JTG-Daugherty Racing Starting Position: 19th
How is your car after practice at Pocono? “It’s good. We had a tough Indy and it’s nice to come back here and have a nice easy practice. We should have a top 20 to start the race with and I feel good about that as we build up for Sunday’s race.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing Starting Position: 21st
How did you race car handle in qualifying at Pocono? “Our M&M’s Camry was really loose in (turn) one. We probably lost four-tenths right there. It was good in (turns) two and three, but we just lost a lot of time in one. I was really happy with our car in practice, so I know we have a pretty good Camry for Sunday. Just wish our qualifying lap ended up a little bit better.”
DAVID REUTIMANN, No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 24th
Did you pick up any speed during qualifying? “Maybe a little bit, not as much as we should have. I missed it a little bit there in turn one and it screwed us up and cost us. The rest of the lap was good, just getting through turn one, I didn’t get through there very good. I should have run a lot faster, the car is capable of running a lot faster.”
How will your car be on Sunday? “I feel like we found some stuff in race trim that should be helpful. I think we’ll be okay on Sunday.”
SCOTT SPEED, No. 82 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 27th
How has your car been today at Pocono? “We were pretty terrible in practice, but we made some pretty good improvements there. I didn’t hit a terribly clean lap and it was still quite a bit more competitive than we were earlier. I think we were able to make some positive changes on the car, which is good and we’ll hopefully be able to carry that into Sunday.”
What do you think of racing at Pocono? “The track is long and the race is long. It gets pretty interesting on restarts here because they give us a long time to get all bunched up before we have to hit the brakes.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 56 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing Starting Position: 28th
How was your qualifying lap? “It’s been a tough day for us. We’ve been struggling with our car and made some changes for qualifying here that didn’t really help. We’ll work on it tonight and get better tomorrow.”
REED SORENSON, No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, Red Bull Racing Team Starting Position: 31st
JOE NEMECHEK, No. 87 Toyota Camry, NEMCO Motorsports Starting Position: 33rd
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 55 Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 36th
DAVE BLANEY, No. 66 Toyota Camry, PRISM Motorsports Starting Position: 38th
P.J. Jones, No. 7 Speed Factory Toyota Camry, Robby Gordon Motorsports Starting Position: 42nd
TODD BODINE, No. 64 Toyota Camry, Gunselman Motorsports Starting Position: 43rd
MAX PAPIS, No. 13 GEICO Toyota Camry, Germain Racing Starting Position: DNQ
- Toyota Motorsports, Press Release
