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AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Kyle Busch said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway that he would "absolutely" wreck a teammate to advance to the Championship 4 round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Doesn't mean he has to feel good about it.
On the first restart of overtime in Sunday's Can-Am 500 Round of 8 finale, Busch initiated contact with the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of Alex Bowman, moving the polesitter into the No. 20 Toyota of race leader Matt Kenseth, Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, and sent it careening into the outside wall.
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At the time Busch, who finished second to race winner Joey Logano, was below the cutoff line. He wound up advancing.
Kenseth, who topped the leaderboard for 55 circuits, landed 21st after the checkered flag fell, and was one of the four drivers eliminated. Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch join him on that list.
"Essentially, I guess I wrecked a teammate," Busch said after the race. "I feel horrible about it … Right now, it feels really (expletive), but tomorrow it might feel a lot better. … The 20 should have been the Gibbs car to (advance)."
Although Busch won't be racing against Kenseth for the title a week from now at Homestead-Miami Speedway in next Sunday's Ford EcoBoost 400 Chase finale (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he will be vying for his second straight title against teammate Carl Edwards, who advanced after winning at Texas last week along with Logano and Jimmie Johnson.
It adds a unique dynamic to the Championship 4 that the four-time 2016 winner didn't have to deal with last year, so he went to the best for advice -- a certain six-time champion.
"It sucks," Johnson told Busch during their joint post-race press conference. "You're going to have a miserable time down there."
Johnson battled with Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon en route to his fourth Sprint Cup Series title in 2009.
Despite saying he knows "it does (suck)," Busch maintained that the open lines of communication and data sharing between his No. 18 team and Edwards' No. 19 crew will remain as such, and they'll work together to ensure one of them walks away a champion.
"All of us have worked really, really well together and that's what made the strength of the Gibbs team for the last few years. That we've gotten so much better is all of us being able to work together and share what we share," Busch said. "We do the same thing, going into next week, and just try to out-race them. If we run the same exact setup and car and everything else, then there's just going to have to be a way that I get the job done better than Carl or vice versa if it comes down to the end where one of us has a better shot at it than the other does."
Busch, who joked with Johnson that his "results from last year show that (he's) the favorite," now has a shot to become the first driver to win back-to-back titles under the revamped Chase format that debuted in 2014.
"Rowdy" won last year's finale and with it the title outright, but right now all four drivers stand on even ground, regardless of their Miami history.
"You know, it's all reset to zero. There's four of us that go for winner-take-all at Homestead. It means a lot to have that opportunity. It's what your whole season comes down to," Busch said.
"Look forward to seeing what all transpires next week."