LAS VEGAS, Nev: Aric Almirola recovered from early race contact with Austin Cindric and numbness in his legs to score his third consecutive top-10 finish in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway.
Almirola started 20th in his Mobil 1 Ford Mustang and consistently kept his Stewart-Haas Racing machine nestled inside the top-20 for much of the event’s first stage.
A caution nearing the end of Stage 1 allowed Almirola the opportunity to pit where his team took two tires allowing him to win the race off pit road but would battle Kurt Busch who stayed out on older tires for the race lead.
The team’s strategy didn’t pan out, however, as Almirola faded through the closing laps of Stage 1, falling outside the top-10 nine laps after the restart and eventually out of the top-15 before settling for 18th at the stage.
Throughout Stage 2 – Almirola continued a solid pace but informed his team that he was experiencing numbness in both of his legs – a similar problem that Tyler Reddick displayed a week before at Auto Club Speedway.
Following the radio chatter, not much was said about the numbness with the focus on Almirola driving back to towards the front in the hunt to be the only driver in 2022 to score top-10 finishes in every race thus far this season.
In Stage 3 – Almirola and crew chief Drew Blickensderfer continued to work on the handling of their race car and found themselves hovering 10th when the caution waved with two laps to go – sending the race into overtime and the lead lap teams to pit road.
The team was able to gain their driver two spots on pit road with Almirola restarting eighth for the green-white-checkered restart.
Over the final three miles of the race, Almirola was able to pick up two more spots, passing Martin Truex Jr. and Tyler Reddick to score his second straight sixth place finish and third overall of 2022 which kicked off with a fifth-place run at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway last month.
The Tampa, Fla. native was also the highest finishing Stewart-Haas Racing driver ahead of Kevin Harvick (12th), Cole Custer (33rd) and Chase Briscoe (35th).
“We fight,” said Almirola after the race. “That’s the beauty of this race team. We’re still learning this car. There’s a lot to learn about it and we’re still trying to figure a lot of things out. Practice is great, but we’ve got to make adjustments throughout the race and I feel like every race we’re learning more and more and more and we’re building a notebook.
“We’re making adjustments throughout the race and trying to figure it out. This team has so much fight in it and so much grit that it’s a lot of fun to race with these guys. We’ll keep digging and try and keep this streak alive of all these top 10 finishes. It’s a lot of fun when you run up front.”
The third race into the new Gen7 race car is still a trial and error for the NASCAR Cup Series teams. For Almirola, his team has taken the approach to utilize the first portion of the race to assess their race car before making big swings and setting themselves up to be better for the end.
“Drew (Blickensderfer) has been doing a great job of making good adjustments throughout the race and just getting the car better and better,” he explained. “We take the first half of the race and it’s really about learning. We make adjustments.
“If they’re no good, we go back on them and just keep fine-tuning on the car to get it to where we need to get it and, usually, the last few weeks we’ve gotten the car where we needed to have it at the end of the race. It’s been nice.
“It’s so much fun to race with this group of guys and everybody that supports us – Mobil 1. Our Ford Mustang was fast. We’ve got some work to do to keep up with some of the other manufacturers. We’ve got to continue to do our homework, but, nonetheless, this is a great start to our season and a lot of fun.”
Almirola credited the handling of his race car for the two-lap run and the ability to use the outside lane to pass Reddick and Truex to collect his 87th career top-10 finish.
“I just wanted to make sure I could get the car turning,” he explained. “I was able to get to a couple of those cars outside and be able to keep the throttle down and get by those guys, so things went our way.
“I picked the right lanes at the right time on restarts. Those last couple of restarts were crucial to get this good finish.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
