Bubba Wallace — winner: “Oh my gosh, man, just so proud of this team. That adrenaline rush is crazy because I’m coming off that right now, and I’m worn out. I just want to thank everybody behind me right here, all these guys, all these men and women at Airspeed for making this possible. To overcome so much and to put these people here in Victory Lane, that’s what it’s about. It’s about these people that continue to push at me, believe in me. Man, just so proud, and I appreciate all you guys. Unbelievable to win here at the Brickyard knowing how big this race is. Knowing all the noise that’s been going on in the background. To set that all aside is a testament to these people on the 23 team. It’s been getting old right around the cutline.”
Kyle Larson — second: “There’s nothing you can do here (at Indianapolis Motor Speedway) to pass, so no, I don’t really think there was anything I could do differently. I was second gear on the first restart, and honestly, that one worked out a little bit better, but he almost got clear of me down the front stretch. And then on the second restart, he brought the pace down a little bit slower, so I needed to be first gear. It was kind of the same thing with me last year – he had the preferred lane on the inside and it’s really hard to beat that. … Regardless, proud of my team today. We just executed. I don’t think we passed many cars on track, but our pit crew did a good job, and our team did a good job with strategy. Happy to get a good result like that. Wish it could have been one spot better, but congrats to Bubba. That’s so cool. This is a big race, and he’s a good dude.”
Denny Hamlin — third: “Great day for our team. I have to say thank you to everyone at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) for chipping in yesterday, and 23XI (Racing) for wrapping the car. Yesterday, (was) a huge team effort. I’ve never seen so many people come together to get this done. It needed a lot of work, and they gave me something I could contend with. Not a lot I could complain with. Think we set the fastest lap there on the last lap. The car is capable, we just needed a little track position. We had to take a little extra fuel on that last stop as we had to ‘pay that fuel tax’ at some point. All we needed is for me to not mess up yesterday and have a little better track position, have more options with the fuel and we would’ve had a winner. But I’m going to be kissing the bricks in street clothes rather than a driver suit.”
Ryan Preece — fourth: ”For a car that doesn’t have track position and is starting 23rd, being able to finish fourth and execute it through strategy and restarts, that shows we have a really strong core. I feel like, ultimately, the finish was a good ending for us.”
Brad Keselowski — fifth: “Solid day for us. We were in position. At certain points we showed a lot of speed. We needed to catch a few breaks to win, which is normal for this race. We didn’t catch enough breaks but we caught some good breaks to finish in the top five with both RFK cars.”
Todd Gilliland — sixth: “It’s crazy to finish sixth here last year and this year, it’s chaotic for sure. There’s a lot of stuff that went into that one. Obviously, we missed a lot of the wrecks at the end. I felt like we had a plan to put ourselves in a good spot and advance through the field in the end and that’s all you can do. Our car had a lot of speed when we needed it, so I’m happy for that and for our Front Row guys.”
Ryan Blaney — seventh: “Yeah, we pieced together a good day. Starting towards the back, it’s just hard to make up ground and pass, so we were trying to do the best job of strategy that we could. We made good moves to win the stage. I knew we were going to pay the price for it, but it was hard to give it up and nice when you’re able to hang on like that. We just scratched and clawed and were able to finish seventh. It was a day where we weren’t the best, but we made something happen, and those are the days that we should be proud of.”
Ty Gibbs — 21st: “It’s great! Want to first say, all glory to God. And, $1 million is a lot of money so I’m going to donate $10,000 to whichever charity Ty Dillon wants to give to. It’s his choice. But we had a fast Toyota Camry. Didn’t end up where we wanted to in the end. We just lost track position and was out of the way to win the race. Had to play it a little but safe but I want to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, everyone a part of it. Thank you to TNT and NASCAR for this opportunity. It’s awesome to win it!”
Kyle Busch — 25th: “We did the best we could with a tough situation today. We could fire off strong for the first five laps in our zone Chevrolet, then started to lose grip. Thought we would be okay and ran in the top six for the beginning of the race. The field got bunched together on a restart and we ended up with damage that ruined our chances of a decent day. Had we executed the way we needed to execute, we would have been there, but we will keep working together to get to where we need to be.”
Ty Dillon — 28th: “Disappointing obviously, but things like that happen and you can’t predict everything. That has been what has been so cool about this In-Season Challenge for everybody. I just hate that we didn’t get to give them a run for it there. I don’t think they would say as a team that they had the best day either. I think if all things are equal and we don’t knock the nose off on that restart, we are probably sitting in a pretty good position to put some pressure on him and race him out pretty solid. The first half of the race, we were okay, and then we had a bad run there at the end of Stage 1. So, I think we were going to be able to get the car back right and challenge him, but it just didn’t work out that way and it’s disappointing. Something happened where it knocked off all the air duct, and pinched off the air so the motor wouldn’t run down the straightaways. Then you are just kind of riding for the rest of the day.”
Erik Jones — 35th: “No warning other than just slow on the right front (during a pit stop). I saw them struggling there for a second, but figured we got it on. (As) soon as I turned into (turn) three, I knew we were going to crash, and I felt it come off. Yeah, it looked bad but honestly didn’t feel as bad in the car as others I’ve had. I feel good and fortunate, happy for that. But, sad for the team. Fast car and things weren’t working out the best today, but I just wanted to have a shot at the end.”
Austin Dillon — 38th: “Man, I hate it for everyone on this No. 3 team. Our Chevrolet was good and I was happy with the balance. We earned points in the first stage and I felt like we had a car capable of finishing inside the top-10. It was a chain reaction with the field checking up on the restart and there was nothing we could do. Smashed our entire nose in and our day was done.”
Ross Chastain — 39th: “I went into Turn 3, and I think I got ran into, so a tough weekend for our Chevy. It felt the same balance-wise and grip-wise as the next couple of cars in front of me but just plugging along. Yeah, just move on to Iowa.”
