NASCAR CUP SERIES: COCA-COLA 600

May 26, 2024

Brad Keselowski

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us. Take us a little bit through tonight. Obviously you worked your way up to second place. You guys had a strong run honestly a couple times throughout the race. Just take us up to that point of the rain coming and where your mind was as you sat and waited this out.

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yeah, it was pretty disappointing. I felt like we had a car to win the race. We kind of ran down the 20 car twice and just didn't get to see it play out. Kind of slipped through our fingers there. Would have liked to have just had more laps and ran the Coke 600. I think we ran the Coke 350 today.

All in all, really happy with our performance. Car was really fast. Pit stops were phenomenal. Just didn't get to see it through. Bummed for our team, bummed for everybody. But the weather is what the weather is.

Q. Brad, with Kyle Larson not making a lap today, that kind of opens up the regular season championship hunt, as well. Do you feel like that will play a significant role in how that unfolds?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yes, this is a big points scoring race normally because you have the third stage, or four stages, but third stage to get points in. I don't think we're going to play those points out. I guess. I don't know. We'll have to get some kind of ruling on that. Probably actually played to his favor in that regard with the rain.

But still, we scored good points today. I think we moved up to 10th, which is nice, and the highest Ford, which is nice. But I think we had a lot more capability than what we were able to get out of it.

Q. Brad, I know obviously it didn't go the full distance, but the speed that you've shown, the speed that Chris has been able to rally with the last month or so, is this RFK really starting to show the potential that you guys have this season do you think?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: Yeah, it was good to have. It was good to be that fast. You want to make it count with wins. You don't want to be a sore loser for second but it stinks because I know we had a car to win today. If that doesn't hurt, you're in the wrong business.

But we've got a lot of work to do on our short track program and our road course program, but our mile-and-a-half stuff seems really good right now.

Q. I know we talk about the rain shortening this. You've won this thing full distance before. Did you talk about over the radio at all before that last green flag run? Did you feel like everybody was racing --

BRAD KESELOWSKI: I think everybody knew the situation. I can't claim ignorance to that. We were going as hard as we could. I feel like I needed another 10 laps or so to be able to make a pass. But that's not how it played out.

Q. When the last caution came out, I think even the prior caution to that, too, you just kept saying, I need longer runs. What prevented you from having enough to get by the 20?

BRAD KESELOWSKI: I think we had more speed than him, but there was a pretty big air advantage that he had. As laps would go on, the aero grip gets displaced by the mechanical grip, and then we could take him.

But the leader, he was probably -- I feel like the 20 car was the second best car today, but it was still the second best car. So to be able to displace him, we needed him to fall off, and that's just not going to happen with laps and catching the back of the pack, and we just didn't get that.