Ambrose leads Ford qualifying effort at Watkins Glen

Marcos Ambrose, No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion – Qualified 2^nd

“I am very proud of my RPM team and everyone. It has been a great weekend for us so far. We qualified fourth and second, so that is a pretty good start to the weekend. I wish Jeff was a little kinder to me to let me get the pole. I thought we had it at the end but it wasn’t enough. It was a pretty good lap though and I will take it. You have to be happy with front row starts.”

Were you shocked when Jeff put up that lap? “He is a fantastic road racer and I have watched a lot of races here where he dominated. He is having a standout year. You can’t discount anybody out there. Anyone in that top-12 if they had gotten the pole I wouldn’t have been surprised.”

Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Miller Lite Ford Fusion – Qualified 9^th

“It was okay. We didn’t get to do a mock run in practice. I don’t know if it would have been any different anyway, who knows? We just didn’t quite put all the pieces together to make it work. We had some traffic on one run and then had to do an extra run and it kept all stacking up. I feel like we are really fast in race trim, we have a lot of speed, we just need it to not fall off so much. If we can do that, we will have a shot to win tomorrow.”

Carl Edwards, No. 99 Kellogg’s/Cheez-It Ford Fusion – Qualified 16^th

What goes through your mind when you know you are losing time in a particular part of the track? “A lot of things go through your mind. The biggest thing is that at that part of the lap you take the green flag and have everything like you want it through turn one and then when you mess up the esses it haunts you the rest of the lap. Then you almost make more mistakes cause you are trying harder. We had a couple pretty good laps. If I had done a little better job through the esses we would have been better off. I believe I have the right guy on the box with strategy and we’ve had a lot of luck with our Kellogg’s Cheez-It Ford. If we can make it two road wins this year it would be huge. This is a fun race track. I wish I would have done a little better job with qualifying.”

Aric Almirola, No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – Qualified 27^th

What was the difference between practice and qualifying? “Honestly I don’t know. I felt like I hit all my marks just like I did in practice and I felt like I got up through the esses pretty good. I don’t know where the half-second I lost from yesterday was. I guess that is why I am not a road course racer. I felt like I had really picked up a lot yesterday during practice and got into rhythm and then to wake up this morning and have to lay down a lap, this is not my specialty. We didn’t lay a good lap down and I am really disappointed. Trent Owens and the guys on the 43 team gave me a really good Fusion this weekend and I didn’t get the job done. I am frustrated and we have some cars to pass in front of us and that will put some burden on Trent’s shoulders to figure out how we will pass cars on pit road. I am happy for Marcos. They have a really fast car and hopefully he can get the pole.”

Ford Racing