Though he has three prime 10 begins in 5 races this season, Cindric’s fourth place end at Atlanta is his solely end higher than twenty second and finds himself mired in twenty first within the sequence standings.
Cindric and his No. 2 Ford crew have had velocity, they’ve simply not been in a position to get via most races to exhibit their full potential. He’s been caught up in accidents at Daytona and Phoenix and fell sufferer to a corded tire final weekend at Bristol.
This weekend’s race at Circuit of the Americas presents sequence drivers their first highway course take a look at of 2024 and using NASCAR’s new quick observe/highway course aero bundle, which was first run at Phoenix two weeks in the past.
Austin Cindric, Staff Penske, Low cost Tire Ford Mustang
Photograph by: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Pictures
“I believe it’s an ideal alternative for us to type of get again on observe and hit the reset button,” mentioned Cindric, 25. “The final couple of weeks have been fairly funky with getting knocked out the primary couple of laps at Phoenix after which clearly final week’s craziness and all of the tire failures that we skilled.
“I’m type of excited to simply get again going and hopefully quite a lot of inexperienced flag operating. It’s been a spot that we’ve had some good tempo. We clearly need to adapt to the brand new bundle, however I’m excited to go hit the reset button and get after it.”
Cindric has intensive highway racing expertise from sports activities vehicles and owns a mixed six highway course wins in NASCAR’s Xfinity and Vehicles sequence.
He has but to win a highway race in Cup – his solely sequence win to date was within the 2022 Daytona 500 – however he has run competitively.
Cindric shall be making his fourth sequence begin at COTA and attempting to increase a streak that has seen him qualify within the prime 10 for the race each season. He has back-to-back prime 10 finishes as nicely along with his greatest effort coming final season (sixth).
“The final two weeks have been wildly out of the management of what I really feel like our race crew is able to in a number of other ways, however so far as COTA stacks up for me, regardless of how you chop it, it’s been a race observe that I’ve been in a position to be aggressive at and lead laps each time I’ve been there in a Cup automotive,” Cindric mentioned.
“Personally, it’s not essentially my favourite race observe, to be trustworthy, however it’s someplace that we’ve carried out nicely. We appear to have a bundle that works nicely there and after the final couple of weeks I’m very hungry to simply execute and everybody get to do our jobs.”
COTA ‘has every part’
Cindric mentioned the problems of the final couple weeks – getting wrecked out early at Phoenix and the surprising tire put on scenario at Bristol – makes it troublesome to pinpoint some areas that he and his crew want to enhance.
What they could want most could also be merely a clear, uneventful race.
Nonetheless, Cindric says COTA presents a tricky problem, even for these with highway racing backgrounds.
“I believe it has every part – each sort of nook conceivable. Excessive velocity, low velocity, lefts and rights, braking zones, medium velocity corners,” he mentioned. “You undergo the entire gearbox.
“There may be some tire put on. We’ve obtained some patches in some locations, but when something, that may make the tire put on perhaps slightly bit much less, and I additionally don’t really feel like this tire essentially wears any greater than any of the remainder.
“It’s considerably of an abrasive race observe, so previous that, it’s simply obtained every part in it and also you simply need to have the whole image to be aggressive there.”
