No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – Brad Keselowski
Start: 1st – 1st pole position of 2016
Finish: 3rd
Status: Running
Laps Completed: 160/160
Laps Led:
Points Position (behind leader): 3rd (-48)
Recap: Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion team overcame two potentially-disastrous obstacles to finish third in the Axalta “We Paint Winner” 400 at Pocono Raceway on Monday afternoon. After qualifying for his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole position of 2016 – and the 12th of his career – Keselowski and the rest of the field had to wait a day to get the race going as rain showers cancelled the show for Sunday afternoon. When the green flag was finally waved Keselowski surrendered the top spot to his teammate, Joey Logano, before eventually settling into the second position. On lap 24, just as the race was to restart following a caution period, the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford was shown the black flag for an unapproved body modification on the team’s first pit stop of the race, resulting in Keselowski making two trips down pit road as a penalty, one to fix the modification and the other to serve the mandatory green-flag pass through since the black flag was shown under caution.
With determination in his voice, Keselowski quickly began working his way back through the field. It took most of the race but he moved into the top 10 at lap 101 to put his team back in contention for the win with the help of solid pit stops by the Miller Lite crew. While running in the sixth position at lap 123, Keselowski was hit in the right-rear quarter panel by a spinning Jimmie Johnson. Amazingly the damage was not severe and he was able to continue without coming down pit road for repairs and giving up a lot of track position. Over the remaining laps of the race, Keselowski appeared to have the fastest car of anyone in the top five. He was able to make his way around the No. 24 of Chase Elliott for third place, but he ran out of laps before he could seriously challenge for the victory. However, Keselowski moved up to third in the point standings, 43 markers out of the lead.
Quote: “All in all, a pretty decent weekend for us with the Miller Lite Ford and Team Penske. I’m proud of that effort to run up front and have another solid weekend. We’ve had a lot of those lately and it doesn’t go unnoticed by me. I’m really proud of my team for those efforts. We just want to keep it going. I want to turn them into wins, but, all in all, a lot to be proud of and we’ll keep on going. We go to Michigan next week and hopefully we can get those two more spots.”