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 workforce have had velocity, they’ve simply not been in a position to get by most races to show 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 street course check of 2024 and using NASCAR’s new brief observe/street course aero bundle, which was first run at Phoenix two weeks in the past.
Austin Cindric, Crew Penske, Low cost Tire Ford Mustang
Photograph by: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Photos
“I feel it’s a fantastic alternative for us to sort of get again on observe and hit the reset button,” stated 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 sort of excited to simply get again going and hopefully a variety of inexperienced flag operating. It’s been a spot that we’ve had some good tempo. We clearly should adapt to the brand new bundle, however I’m excited to go hit the reset button and get after it.”
Cindric has intensive street racing expertise from sports activities vehicles and owns a mixed six street course wins in NASCAR’s Xfinity and Vans sequence.
He has but to win a street race in Cup – his solely sequence win to date was within the 2022 Daytona 500 – however he has run competitively.
Cindric might be making his fourth sequence begin at COTA and making an attempt 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 properly 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 workforce 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 stated.
“Personally, it’s not essentially my favourite race observe, to be sincere, but it surely’s someplace that we’ve carried out properly. We appear to have a bundle that works properly there and after the final couple of weeks I’m very hungry to simply execute and everybody get to do our jobs.”
COTA ‘has all the things’
Cindric stated the problems of the final couple weeks – getting wrecked out early at Phoenix and the sudden tire put on scenario at Bristol – makes it tough to pinpoint some areas that he and his workforce want to enhance.
What they might want most could also be merely a clear, uneventful race.
Nonetheless, Cindric says COTA presents a troublesome problem, even for these with street racing backgrounds.
“I feel it has all the things – each sort of nook possible. Excessive velocity, low velocity, lefts and rights, braking zones, medium velocity corners,” he stated. “You undergo the entire gearbox.
“There’s 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 all the things in it and also you simply should have the whole image to be aggressive there.”
