Team Penske 5-Hour Energy 400 Qualifying Report

May 9, 2014


KANSAS CITY, Kan. (May 9, 2014) – Joey Logano and the No.22 AAA Insurance Ford Fusion led the Team Penske qualifying effort on Friday as he will start second in the 5-Hour Energy 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Logano, who has made more appearances in the final round of "knockout" qualifying than any other NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver this season, once again put up a solid showing in this Friday's three-segment qualifying.

“We have another good AAA Insurance Fusion this weekend,” said Logano. “Like Brad, we were able to pick up speed every time. We made the right adjustments and I feel like my car, through Turns 1 and 2 on the third session was really good. I talked about in the second session how I could drive in a car length deeper and apparently I couldn’t. That blew up in my face. I got tight and wasn’t able to hold the speed to get the pole. Overall it is a good starting spot and we are qualifying well. If you count out the restrictor plate stuff we are still the only car to make it through every session and we are proud of that and ready to go for another win.”

Brad Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Wurth Ford, also advanced to the final round as he too once again put in another spirited effort and qualified in the top-three for the seventh time this year.

“We were fortunate to have some fast Fords out there today," said Keselowski. “I didn’t think we were very fast for much of the day and our first run we weren’t but this knockout qualifying gives us an opportunity to work on it and get better and that is what we did with our second, third and fourth runs. I feel like I ran a race out there. We got it better each time and climbed up the ladder. I think we were probably 35th or 40th our first run and 15th on our second and somewhere around ninth on our third. We were third on our fourth run and that is great progress. That is how this format works. I am very proud of our team and their effort to get better every time.”

Ryan Blaney, who had to make the field on time, will start 21st as he successfully drove the No. 12 SKF Ford Fusion into the second round of qualifying in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut.

“It feels good to make it,” said Blaney. “It is a shame my dad couldn’t make it. I felt we had a good car the first session and it got a little cooler going into the second session and the track picked up a little bit and got a little bit tight. We stayed about the same speed, everyone just got faster. We just needed to free it up a little more in that second session. I think we have a pretty good race car for tomorrow. Hopefully we can execute tomorrow and run all 400 miles. I think we will have a pretty good race.”

The 5-Hour Energy 400 will be broadcast live tomorrow on FOX at 7:00 p.m. ET and on MRN, Sirius XM Ch. 90.