Austin Cindric, for the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, has notched a top five on a traditional mile-and-a-half racetrack, finishing second to Kyle Larson in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Behind the wheel of the iconic No. 2 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Cindric had one of his best all-around showings as a Cup Series driver on Sunday, showcasing legitimate race-winning pace across all 400 miles.
Aside from race-winner Kyle Larson, who demolished the field with a lights-out 235 of 267 laps led, Cindric was the second-quickest car on the day – posting the fastest lap on the racetrack 30 times, per NASCAR’s Loop Data, second only to Larson (88).
That intermediate-track speed is exactly what Team Penske (and all of Ford Racing, for that matter) have been looking for throughout the year, and for Cindric, it helped him climb inside the top-10 in NASCAR Cup Series points, to ninth, which, should it stand, would be the best-ever points finish for the Mooresville, North Carolina-native.
At times, it looked as though Cindric might have the speed to challenge the No. 5, especially on the longer runs, but circumstances prevented the three-time NASCAR Cup Series winner from having a legitimate shot to battle the defending champion, between some troubles on pit road, a lack of track position, or pitting on the back end of the green-flag cycle.
“I definitely wish I would have had a shot there,” Cindric said post-race. “I thought we were really strong all day. We made some decent adjustments and got ourselves good for those long runs for the final run. We just lost a bit too much time in the pit cycle. I think there’s definitely some things I could have done better – I [stopped long] in the stall and threw the stop off a bit. When you lose by only half a second, it comes down to all the little stuff.”
“Those guys had a hell of a battle for the lead to give me a shot.”
Kyle Larson and Chase Briscoe were the leaders when the final pit stop cycle occurred, and inside the final 40 laps, they got to battling hard, which allowed the driver of the No. 2 to close a five-second gap at the start of the run to just a half-second when the checkered flag flew.
The second-place result was the best for Team Penske on a mile-and-a-half racetrack since Joey Logano won last Spring at Texas Motor Speedway. For Cindric, his previous best on this track type, was a sixth-place finish at Las Vegas in 2023.
“[I’m] super proud of the effort from everyone at Team Penske, Discount Tire, and Ford,” Cindric continued. “I feel like I had a car that could have won today, but I didn’t. I can be happy and pissed about that at the same time. Hopefully, we can transfer that over to next week and the week following because I don’t see the reason why we can’t.”
“I think these are the tracks you have to be critically good on. We saw pieces of this from Chicago, and I felt like we took some bits and pieces and applied them to Kansas, and obviously, you can see what it did. I’m super proud of everybody on the team, keeping us in it all day and unloading super close.”
The next two weekends, at the similarly-styled racetracks of Las Vegas and Charlotte, will be crucial for Cindric in seeing where he’ll land in the final championship standings. With only 49 points separating fifth and tenth in standings, two good runs could make the difference between fighting for a top-five in points, or falling outside the top-10.
