FORT WORTH, Texas — Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Jay Fabian responded strongly to Friday’s three-round group qualifying session at Texas Motor Speedway, one which was marked by a lack of activity in the opening round that saw some drivers eliminated earlier than anticipated.
“We’re disappointed with what we saw,” Fabian said. “Nobody deserves to see that, our fans don’t deserve it. We’re going to take whatever steps we have to to clean it up so we don’t have this problem again. Pretty much everything’s on the table as far as what we’ll do moving forward.
“It’s certainly disappointing what happened. Moving forward, we’ll do what we have to do to make sure the fans get what they want to see.”
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The most notable instance involved Clint Bowyer and Ryan Newman. After NASCAR officials instructed Newman to move up toward the middle of pit road in the opening round while cars were waiting on pit road, Bowyer felt he was being blocked by Newman’s No. 6 from making his lap. Bowyer, who ended up with a qualifying position of 25th, offered frustrated commentary after his elimination to FS1.
“I’m going to assume that he thought the 6 was going out to qualify,” Fabian said of Bowyer. “And he didn’t — he was just following what we told him to do. He followed the 6 car that he thought was going out to make a run, and he didn’t. He stopped, we asked him to move up. That’s what happened.
“There’s plenty of TV views that show that there was room to go by him. I’m sure he’s upset.”
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Fabian elaborated on his disappointment further in terms of the drivers’ inaction, citing that the No. 41 of Daniel Suarez went out and transferred to the next round twice on his own, without waiting to try and draft with another car. Suarez qualified fourth in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
“It’s disappointing that they sit out there as long as they do,” he said. “It’s disappointing that they give reasons why they don’t go and then someone goes and they choose to not follow him. So, a lot of what they say doesn’t add up to their actions on pit road. I guess that’s the disappointing part. When you see someone roll, you would assume that somebody would follow them and they chose not to, which kind of leads you to being landlocked at the end of pit road.
” … We’ll put more thought into it and react the way we feel like we need to,” he continued. “Again, whatever we have to do to give the fans what they want to see with cars qualifying is what we’re going to have to take steps to achieve.”