NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 3, 2024

Jonathan Hassler

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We've now been joined by our race-winning crew chief, Jonathan Hassler.

Congratulations on this win. Obviously you were in a must-win situation, much like the situation you were in a year ago. You won this race. Went on to win the championship. Talk about coming into this weekend, ultimately what it feels like to be in this position again.

JONATHAN HASSLER: Yeah, I think for us, this weekend was a little bit different than a year ago in that there was really, without guys having trouble, no chance for us to get in on points. We knew it was kind of a must-win scenario.

At that, we weren't really racing for stage points, we just needed to maintain some decent track position. As wild as races typically are here at Martinsville, we needed to be in the front four or five for the last run. Obviously did that. Were able to get the win.

THE MODERATOR: We'll poll for questions.

Q. You walked it off twice in a row, two years in a row. What really is going through your mind right now having accomplished that?

JONATHAN HASSLER: Yeah, it's tough. You almost feel like, when you've done it once, that the odds of it happening again, the odds are stacked against you. But you don't let that change the way you focus, the way you prepare. You try to bring the best car to the track that you can with the most speed and have a plan for the strategy as things change.

Like I said, you try to be as prepared as you can be and let the results work out kind of the way they do.

Q. The last 30 laps, it looked as though, as the sun went down, the tires evened out. Then you guys are four seconds back, then all of a sudden the last 20 you come to life. What was your analysis there?

JONATHAN HASSLER: Yeah, our car had been really good on the long run all day long. Hadn't had a ton of long runs to necessarily show that off. Felt pretty good about our chances when those guys stayed out with 20-some laps on their tires.

From what we'd been seeing all day, the tires really kind of fell off the cliff when the guys got to about lap 90 to lap 100. I know those guys were going to have to go through that transition.

Certainly a little bit disappointed with the way things worked out with that early restart. We lost some positions. We were able to get ahead of the 9, who was the next one on the same strategy as us.

So yeah...

Q. You knew you had a must-win situation. Have you prepared for Phoenix? What is your scenario for next week?

JONATHAN HASSLER: I'd say on the 12 team, we've done very minor preparations for Phoenix. I would say probably 20% of the prep that we'll do.

But company-wide with the 22 getting the win, our whole company has done a lot of work to get prepared for Phoenix and make sure that we're bringing the best stuff that we can do. We'll definitely dive into that.

Really all of the team at Team Penske work really well together. A lot of times we run very similar if not the same setups. We'll be able to dive into those notes and be very competitive next week.

Q. You talked about the long run speed you had. Do you feel the tire advantage you had played into that? If so, how soon through the race did you realize fresh tires were an advantage?

JONATHAN HASSLER: Yeah, I think our long-run speed probably was what allowed us to get past the 9. Then, yeah, those fresher tires allowed us to get past the 5 and 24 that had stayed out.

I felt pretty confident that those guys would kind of fall off the cliff, as we saw with our own car, like I said, 90 to 100 laps on tires. I felt good about our chances when they stayed out.

Q. You've worked with Ryan for the last two Playoff runs. What have you seen out of him, mental fortitude, what qualities makes him so good in these high-pressure situations?

JONATHAN HASSLER: I think the favorite thing that I've seen out of him, he's quick to move on to the next thing that we need to tackle. We obviously had our struggles at Homestead. I think by the time we got to the plane, honestly, after the race at Homestead, he was focused on Martinsville.

Talked about it a little bit on Monday. Similar, this week on Saturday we didn't qualify quite as well as we wanted to. We talked about qualifying for about 30 seconds and moved on to do what he needed to do to have the best chance to win the race.

Q. Was there ever a point tonight where you saw where you were track position-wise, Ryan was getting a little upset on the radio, you said, It's not going to happen tonight? Did you ever have that thought cross your mind?

JONATHAN HASSLER: No. You watch back to a lot of Martinsville races, and I think as long as you stay in the front four or front five, things get kind of crazy, so you'll have a shot, if you get a late-race restart, even if you stay in the top four or five.

Obviously the tire was definitely falling off. You had some different strategies. So if you were on the good end of that, even without track position, you'd have a chance to advance.

No, I just knew if we just hung around, we'd have a shot.

THE MODERATOR: Jonathan, congratulations on the win.

JONATHAN HASSLER: Thank you.