Information By: MIKE ARNING / STEWART-HAAS RACING – AUSTIN, TX
STEWART-HAAS RACING
EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix
Date: March 24, 2024
Event: EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix (Round 6 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas (3.426-mile, 20-turn road course)
Format: 68 laps, broken into three stages (15 laps/15 laps/38 laps)
Race Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Christopher Bell of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
SHR Finish:
● Chase Briscoe (Started 32nd, Finished 13th / Running, completed 68 of 68 laps)
● Ryan Preece (Started 24th, Finished 24th / Running, completed 68 of 68 laps)
● Noah Gragson (Started 39th, Finished 35th / Running, completed 67 of 68 laps)
● Josh Berry (Started 31st, Finished 36th / Running, completed 67 of 68 laps)
SHR Points:
● Chase Briscoe (17th with 131 points, 89 out of first)
● Josh Berry (29th with 76 points, 144 out of first)
● Ryan Preece (31st with 73 points, 147 out of first)
● Noah Gragson (34th with 58 points, 162 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Briscoe earned his fourth top-15 of the season and his third top-15 in four career NASCAR Cup Series starts at COTA.
● This was Briscoe’s third straight result of 13th or better. He finished ninth March 10 at Phoenix Raceway and 13th last Sunday at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
● Preece finished fifth in Stage 2 to earn six bonus points.
● Berry finished 10th in Stage 2 to earn a bonus point.
● This was Berry’s first career NASCAR Cup Series start at COTA.
Race Notes:
● William Byron won the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix to score his 12th career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his second of the season and his first at COTA. His margin of victory over second-place Christopher Bell was .692 of a second.
● There were just two caution periods for a total of four laps.
● Thirty-four of the 39 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Martin Truex Jr., remains the championship leader after COTA with a five-point advantage over second-place Ty Gibbs.
Sound Bites:
“Our race was OK overall. I felt like, starting 32nd, that for the first couple of laps we were able to drive up to 17th and were going to be in a really good spot coming to the end of the first stage. I bottomed out really hard into the esses and it made me miss a corner and that really changed the whole complexity of our race. I had to go to the back and then drove back up there to the top-10. At the end with eight to go I made a huge mistake and got in the dirt in turn eight and allowed those guys to all swallow me up those last couple of laps. I thought we made our Mustang better throughout the day. I thought we had a solid 10th-place car, but we don’t really have anything else for the rest of the guys. We need to do some work, but to finish right outside of the top-10, we’ve been able to do that pretty much every week this year. If we aren’t in the top-10, we’re just a couple of spots outside of it. We’ve been really consistent, which is nice. We just need to get a little bit better and then, hopefully, we can improve on the finishes.” – Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“We just could never get track position. Every time we went up there we’d get spun or wrecked or whatever. I felt like we had a pretty good racecar, just nothing to show for it.” – Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“We struggled from the get-go. We made some spots up at the beginning of the race and then fell back. Was kind of off the pace and knew we were probably worse than we were in practice, so we decided to come down pit road at the end of stage two and make some extensive changes to the setup, just wholesaling it and throwing everything we could at it. We were hoping to get a caution there at the end to get racked back up, but never did. Definitely a brutal day, but still proud of everyone on this team. A long day with nothing to show for it.” – Noah Gragson, driver of the No. 10 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“We got better throughout the race. Our lap times were pretty good at the end. We just needed some more cautions to bunch everything up and help our odds. It was a tough weekend and going into it we knew it would be hard, but we learned a lot and we’ll be better for the next one.” – Josh Berry, driver of the No. 4 Overstock.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Richmond 400 on Sunday, March 31 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The race begins at 7 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.