THE MODERATOR: We're going to get started with our post-race media availabilities. We're now joined by Jeff Gordon with Hendrick Motorsports and our race winning team. Congratulations.
Q. Bittersweet day. A great win for you guys and then the disappointment with Chase. Can you weigh in on that dichotomy there?
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, it's sort of the agony sometimes of a four-car team when one of them does so well, has just an absolute flawless day, and I think with what William and the 24 and Rudy and that team did, it shows you that you just can't make any mistakes. You have to, these days morning ever, be flawless, and it means that a whole weekend has got to come together, from qualifying to restarts, pit road strategy, as well as pit stops and restarts.
Those guys did it flawlessly. Unfortunately we had some mistakes. The 48 was just off. I haven't really downloaded with them. They were off. I'm not sure how they lost some of the track position.
But clearly miscalculation with the 9 car, and that was huge. He was stretching -- he came in a little bit short the first stop, and so they were trying to stretch it to get closer on the strategy of the others.
You always want to pad yourself here just in case there's a lot of restarts at the end. The fuel just wasn't there. It was really unfortunate.
I haven't talked to Kyle. I just know they were -- I think it was the last section he was speeding on pit road, and again, that's just a tiny little mistake, but it ended up being huge because I think they had a car that could compete with William and run 1-2 between those guys or battle it out between them.
Q. If you had to go into Daytona knowing you needed to win to make the Playoffs, how stressful would that be on you?
JEFF GORDON: I think we've felt like we've needed a win for a few weeks, so I think that you always race to win, so it doesn't really change your mindset. It just puts a little bit more pressure because of what is at stake.
But I also know that they can certainly win there.
For us internally, it's just been this nice progression to see he and Rudy clicking, the team, and just everything coming together this year, and then the race cars are there, the pit stops are there, and William is doing a phenomenal job and you can see his confidence is there and racing with some of the best out there on a road course today and with a lot of pressure on the restarts. To be able to get to the lead, he did it perfectly today. Just goes to show you his maturity and his confidence and just what that team is capable of, but at the same time, I think they'll tell you they needed to get some momentum back.
I feel like the Toyotas, in particular Truex and Hamlin, have gained a lot of momentum lately, and we're coming into the critical time of the year where it all counts, the championship and the Playoffs. Those guys, they needed a boost. They needed a day like today, and yeah, I'm excited for them.
Q. You had a lot of success here in your Cup career, so how cool is it to see the 24 back in Victory Lane here at Watkins Glen?
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, it's really cool. Seeing Hendrick continue their dominance at this racetrack is certainly something that means a lot to all of us. So many great memories being up here, and to see that continue, but it's always a little bit something special, a little bit unique when you look out there and you see the car number that you drove.
The cars have changed, the team has changed a lot, but that number will never change, and it being tied to Hendrick Motorsports. It's always really special, and I think William and I have a great relationship, and he makes us very proud, not just at Hendrick, but the 24 fans and the allegiance out there that is proud to see what he's doing, as well.
Q. William has got the most playoff points with his five wins. How do you think the Playoffs set up for the 24 team?
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, when you have a year like they're having, your goals are much higher and you're setting yourself up to just get everything that you possibly can out of it, so I don't know where exactly they're at, but I think it's either not possible or almost impossible for them to win the season-long points or this part of the season.
I think that's a little bit of disappointment, but you look at everything else, especially today, I think they gained a decent amount of playoff points, so that was huge.
All those really matter because one, you're seeing how tight the racing is, right, how the cars are running almost the same speed, how hard it is to pass, and so you just don't know how things are going to unfold in those first couple rounds.
Anything you can do to pad yourself so that if you do make a slight mistake, you aren't out of it in the first round.
Q. How would you describe the last five races? Would you consider what William and his team has been through sort of a slump? They did lead a lot of laps at Pocono, but I didn't know if it was more circumstances or if they needed a pick me up?
JEFF GORDON: They definitely needed a pick me up. When you're leading the points and you fall out of the lead of the regular season points and you know that you're capable of winning more races and you don't capitalize on that, then that gets frustrating.
It's wild the way the season works today. It just seems like there's more ebbs and flows and kind of waves that you go in and out of more so than in the past, and maybe it's just because of how tight the competition is.
But I do think that getting on a hot streak at the right time can make all that go away, and certainly this is one step towards that, but if they can do that in the first round of the Playoffs, I think that would really be huge and get kind of whatever you want to call that, those five races that didn't go the way they wanted them to, that just puts it in the rear view mirror. I think it's all just looking forward now.
Q. In regards to William's development, he's talked about how hard he's worked on trying to get better at road courses, his work with Max. Would you consider this road course victory one of the final pieces of his driver puzzle, or do you think he still has more areas where he could improved?
JEFF GORDON: Well, you never stop improving. All the way up to my final race, I was working on something.
But I do love his tenacity and just the way that he approaches every single weekend, and when you have a driver like that that is saying give me as much information as I possibly can, whether it's pit road or restart selection or gear selection, braking zones, all those things like William does, he gets in the sim, it's about helping to develop our tools and make them better as well as make himself better and the team better, and he's all in.
You still have to have the other ingredients to go along with it, and I think that that's what's making them have a standout, breakout type of year because the effort they're putting in as well as the tools that they have at their disposal.
Q. I was just curious how you felt like the organization was heading into the Playoffs. There doesn't seem to be a clear favorite of a team going into the Playoffs because of the cars and the racing this year.
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, you know, as soon as you think, oh, man, they're hot, and watch out for them, it seems like two weeks later, you're saying what happened to them. It's crazy.
I'm not in as much on the engineering side and everything that these guys are doing, but I hear the debriefs and I get enough of the information to realize that you can be -- it looks like you can be way off and it's just the tiniest little thing that you adjust or change and all of a sudden you're right back into it. You can see every team is trying to hit on that every weekend and it doesn't matter how good they are.
I think that's what's going to be critical as you get into the Playoffs is just making sure that you hit it more times than the other guys and then get yourself to Phoenix and then make sure that you do it one last time.
Q. Just about William, how important is it to see him now succeeding on all different kinds of courses because that's going to be huge when it comes to the Playoffs, and it probably also speaks to his doing well and growing and learning as a driver overall.
JEFF GORDON: Yeah, he's capable of winning everywhere. I know for us as we look at drivers and evaluate drivers, that's what you're looking for is somebody that's diverse, somebody that's aggressive but also knows how to save the equipment when they need to, somebody that can stay calm in stressful situations.
You want them well-rounded as far as the tracks that they compete on, but you want them well-rounded as a person, too. You see William's demeanor, he's pretty calm and cool off the track, but he's aggressive on the track. That's everything you can ask for out of a driver.
Q. Just wondered if you had any thoughts, back-to-back races, I think one caution total. Wondering why we've had such clean races two weeks in a row on road courses.
JEFF GORDON: Well, first of all, because we're not stopping for the stage breaks. I'm not saying I'm voting for it or against it. I'm just saying that that was a change.
Just those two parts of the race where you're bringing it under caution and stacking everybody back up is more opportunity to have people bumping and banging and creating more cautions, as we all know.
Honestly, I watched that race today, and I felt like I was watching races from the '90s. To me it was the kind of race that you used to see at road courses.
I laugh throughout my career of -- I remember a time where people were saying, why do we have two road courses. The road course races aren't very good, and it's just kind of strung out, and then we went to double-file restarts and then we went to stage racing and all of a sudden the road courses are unbelievable and amazing.
Now I think we've gotten better on the mile-and-a-halfs, and I think the superspeedways seem to be really good, but the short tracks and road courses need a little bit of work. NASCAR is certainly aware of it, and they're trying some things to sort that out.
It's just hard to get close to the car in front of you to then be able to dive bomb them and make some of these risky moves that then might turn into more cautions.
Of course we all know that we're not seeing a lot of failures like we used to, either, whether it be brake or engine or transmission. This stuff is pretty robust and durable.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports