‘I definitely want more. We were pretty loose in qualifying,’ Austin Cindric on securing P6 start at his Coco-Cola 600 debut

Austin Cindric was the top-performing ford on Saturday at the Charlotte Motor Speedway as he drove his No:2 Team Penske Racing Ford Mustang to the P6 pole for the Sundays Cup race behind the top 4 Toyotas lead by Denny Hamlin at the front and the sole Chevy at P5, the No:24 HMS Camaro ZL1 of William Byron.  

Though the Toyota Domination of the 1.5 Mile track was expected, them securing the Top 4 wasn’t the most desired result for the rest of the teams considering their rides weren’t as smooth as their Toyota counterparts in qualifying which will come in handy for the 600-mile race. Mitchel McDowell of Front Row Motorsports is the only other Ford on the Top 10.

Austin Cindric who started his rookie season with a bang with Daytona 500 has only secured one top 10 finish the whole season which was at the COTA. Cindric finished inside the top 20 7 times this season but constantly failed to find his way into the top 10 this year. Now Austin Cindric has come forth expressing his thoughts on how the qualifiers played out for him.

Also read: ‘Toyotas have really shown great speed on the mile-and-a-halves,’ Denny Hamlin secures the Coco-Cola 600 pole as Toyota dominates the track

Find out what Austin Cindric said

Austin Cindric acknowledged that his No:2 Team Penske Ford Mustang was pretty loose in qualifying as the rookie is under satisfied with his performance. He pointed out that he is unsure about the fact that he can do a 400 lap run, as the race hosts 600 miles making it the longest in the cup schedule,  Sunday with the car running like that though it was a solid outing.

“I definitely want more. We were pretty loose in qualifying. I’m not sure I can do 400 laps, 600 miles hanging on like that, but a solid day for our Menards Ford Mustang,” Austin Cindric said.

Austin Cindric went on to say that they need a little bit more speed to catch up with the Toyota who are the front runners to get inside the Top 5 which also calls for good execution throughout the race from him. Austin Cindric added that since this is his Coco-Cola 600 debut he likes to finish the whole race and acknowledges that it’s good to start inside the top 10.

“I think we need a little bit of speed to run up inside the top five, but this race is gonna be about execution. This is gonna be my first Coke 600 in person and from the driver’s seat, so I want to do all 600 miles, and being in the top 10 is a good start,” Austin Cindric added.

Austin Cindric will be hoping to secure an entertaining run-in in Charlotte to claim his stake in the 2022 Rookie of the Year Award which he lose some sight of mid-Season as he started producing some inconsistent performance. Considering the fact that he is in a superior performing car compared to fellow rookies he should be able to grind out more results in the coming races and an entry into the Playoff is now isn’t a guarantee with one race win as it stands.

Also read: ‘I think he has a legit shot at it,’ Chase Elliott predicts a victory for his Ex-teammate at the Indy 500

Also read: An ‘excited’ Ty Dillon is looking forward to keeping up the momentum they ‘have been building the last couple of weeks,’ at the iconic Coco-Cola 600

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