6. Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Ford, Team Penske. The 2012 Sprint Cup champ led the second-most laps (52) and landed his best finish of the season, but remains on the hunt for his first top-five. "We just didn’t quite have enough speed," said Keselowski, who drove the top-finishing Ford. "I thought we were about a third- or fourth-place car and got shuffled to finish where we did."
7. Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Chevrolet, Furniture Row Racing. The scrappy Colorado-based team continued its upswing, moving to third in the early Sprint Cup standings. Truex rose to as high as second place Sunday, gaining two spots on a 126th-lap restart and leading his spotter to exclaim, "All clear, you are the man!" Truex joins points leader Kevin Harvick and Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano as the only three drivers with top-10 finishes in all four races thus far. | Sign up for RaceView to see in-car video on race days
8. Joey Logano, No. 22 Ford, Team Penske. Logano led twice (the only driver other than Harvick to lead more than once) for 35 laps, benefitting from some fleet-footed pit work from his No. 22 crew. He rallied back after a pit stop during the next-to-last caution period, saying afterward, "getting a top-10 is great but we want to win some more."
9. Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. The first top-10 finish of Gordon’s final full season in NASCAR’s top division couldn’t come soon enough, helping him jump five spots to 25th in the Sprint Cup standings. He gave up third place by pitting during the ninth of 10 yellow flags, but threaded his way back for his fourth top-10 in his last five Phoenix races.
10. Kyle Larson, No. 42 Chevrolet, Chip Ganassi Racing. Larson survived a dicey moment shortly after a restart in the 126th lap when Kevin Harvick pushed on his back bumper, getting the No. 42 askew off Turn 4. Larson kept headed in the right direction, securing his second straight top-10 finish.
11. Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. Johnson’s adventures came early and late in the 312-lapper at Phoenix: He collided with Brian Vickers at the end of the first lap, leading Johnson to tell crew chief Chad Knaus on the radio, "It’s so weird, he left me a lane and came over on the straight." Johnson pressed on after more contact with Carl Edwards on pit road during the race’s seventh caution.
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. Stenhouse was at the head of the Roush Fenway class Sunday, marking his best Sprint Cup finish since a sixth-place effort at Bristol Motor Speedway last August. The effort wasn’t without some drama, an 81st-lap nudge from Tony Stewart that sent him out of the groove and cost him a handful of spots early on.
13. Carl Edwards, No. 19 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Over his radio in the final stages, Edwards — who withstood a collision with Jimmie Johnson‘s No. 48 on pit road — radioed his crew that the No. 19 was "shaking like hell," but he was assured that a flapping piece of sheet metal at the rear was upsetting the car’s balance. His JGR entry was the highest-finishing Toyota in the 43-car field. | Sign up for Scanner today to hear in-car audio
14. Paul Menard, No. 27 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. Menard’s third straight finish on the outskirts of the top 10 didn’t come without some excitement as he just missed Tony Stewart‘s spinning car in the 238th lap. "I may have just kissed it, but nothing major," he told his RCR crew.
15. Austin Dillon, No. 3 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing. Another RCR driver having a more definitive brush with Tony Stewart was Dillon, who sustained a 143rd-lap bump off the fourth turn. Displeased team owner Richard Childress, Dillon’s grandfather, gave him some stern instruction for dealing with Stewart over the team radio: "You know what to do when you get back there."
16. Matt Kenseth, No. 20 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Kenseth spent his fair share of the day mixing it up among the top 10, but an 188th-lap penalty for speeding exiting the pits cost the No. 20 group precious track position.
17. AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Chevrolet, JTG-Daugherty Racing. The ‘Dinger overcame a pair of Phoenix setbacks — starting at the rear of the field because of a Saturday engine change, then seeing his jack man sidelined by injury on an early pit stop. The solid finish kept Allmendinger firmly in the provisional Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff grid, fifth in the series standings.
18. Justin Allgaier, No. 51 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Allgaier sewed up his best finish of the season, but also drew some initial criticism from Tony Stewart after their 238th-lap battle sent Smoke spinning. "I don’t think I crowded him, but you know how it is," Allgaier told his crew, noting the difficulties in judging his line through the third and fourth turns. | Sign up for Scanner today to hear in-car audio
19. Aric Almirola, No. 43 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. Almirola lamented his car’s struggles with handling, especially in traffic, but was hopeful for a rebound next Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, site of the third and final leg of NASCAR’s West Coast Swing. "Our intermediate program has been good this year, so we’ll look to getting up front next week in California," Almirola said.
20. Casey Mears, No. 13 Chevrolet, Germain Racing. Handling woes kept the No. 13 from making progress during the 500-kilometer race, but Mears tweeted hours after the checkered flag that the team found a problem in the right-rear that was the culprit. Despite the midpack finish, he still held a tenuous grip on the 12th of 16 spots in the provisional Chase grid.
21. David Ragan, No. 18 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Ragan’s stint as a substitute for the injured Kyle Busch has yet to produce a finish better than his interim car number. Sunday, it produced an irate Danica Patrick after their late-race run-in. Ragan’s JGR team celebrated as last year’s winner at Auto Club Speedway, where Busch scored his only Sprint Cup victory of the season.
22. Landon Cassill, No. 40 Chevrolet, Hillman Smith Motorsports. The Iowa native posted his best finish of the Sprint Cup season by a wide margin, finishing on the lead lap for the first time in 2015. He was the recipient of the free pass back onto the lead lap three times in the early going.
23. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing. Finishing last among the JGR contingent didn’t sit well with Hamlin, who hopes to bounce back into form at Auto Club Speedway, a track that has been a house of horrors, injury-wise, for him the last two years. "We have to go to California and offset this," he told his No. 11 team on the cool-down lap. | Sign up for Scanner today to hear in-car audio
24. Clint Bowyer, No. 15 Toyota, Michael Waltrip Racing. An unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel in the 143rd lap left Bowyer shouting a stream of profanities over his team radio near the race’s midpoint. He received the free pass back onto the lead lap during the sixth of 10 caution periods.
25. Cole Whitt, No. 35 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. Whitt matched his best performance in five career Sprint Cup starts at Phoenix International Raceway, but also held the distinction Sunday as the race’s biggest gainer, finishing 14 spots up from his starting position.
26. Danica Patrick, No. 10 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Patrick found herself at the tail of the field after drawing a 201st-lap penalty for her crew’s failure to control a tire on pit road, then spun through turns 3 and 4 after a significant nudge from David Ragan‘s No. 18. "Nice try, Mr. Nice Guy Ragan," she told her crew under caution. | Sign up for Scanner today to hear in-car audio
27. Greg Biffle, No. 16 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. A loose wheel with roughly 75 laps to go cost Biffle dearly when he was forced to make an unscheduled green-flag pit stop. He was the beneficiary of the race’s next caution flag, but wound up as the final driver on the lead lap in his worst finish of the season.
28. Trevor Bayne, No. 6 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing. After going a lap down to leader Kevin Harvick in the race’s first half, Bayne said, "I about flipped over trying to keep up with him. Loose in, about to wreck every lap. Just terrible." Bayne matched both his result from the previous week and the number of laps down at the finish (3).
29. David Gilliland, No. 38 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. Gilliland illustrated the tooth-and-nail nature of racing back in the pack when he traded paint with Mike Bliss down the backstretch early on, trying to avoid going a lap down. He eventually did, winding up three laps back at the checkered flag in his worst result so far in 2015.
30. Alex Bowman, No. 7 Chevrolet, Tommy Baldwin Racing. The second-year driver made the most of an ill-handling car, telling his TBR crew over the radio about feeling "brake shake" as the race entered its second half. It marked a modest improvement over Bowman’s last-place finish the previous weekend in Las Vegas.
31. J.J. Yeley, No. 23 Toyota, BK Racing. High hopes for a solid day in his Arizona hometown went for naught with his worst finish at the 1-mile track since spring 2011. The performance left him 0-for-13 in the top-10 column over his Sprint Cup career at Phoenix.
32. Brett Moffitt, No. 34 Ford, Front Row Motorsports. In two starts thus far as David Ragan‘s sub in the No. 34, Moffitt has been unable to replicate the magic from his eighth-place outing earlier in the season as Brian Vickers‘ fill-in at MWR. He’ll get another shot this Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in the last of his three scheduled drives for the Front Row team.
33. Mike Bliss, No. 32 Ford, GoFAS Racing. After Bliss failed to qualify the previous weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the No. 32 was back on track Sunday at Phoenix. The veteran won a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Phoenix in 1998, but has been no better than 20th in the desert in his Sprint Cup career.
34. Jeb Burton, No. 26 Toyota, BK Racing. The rocky start to Burton’s Sprint Cup tenure continued Sunday at Phoenix, but the 22-year-old can take some solace in wrapping up a career-best finish. "We made big gains this weekend had a better car then (sic) where we finished," Burton tweeted after the race. "Proud of the effort all weekend."
35. Matt DiBenedetto, No. 83 Toyota, BK Racing. After failing to qualify the previous two weeks at Atlanta and Las Vegas, DiBenedetto’s Sprint Cup debut finally came. He drove home in the same position that he started — 35th.
36. Josh Wise, No. 98 Ford, Phil Parsons Racing. Wise lagged to his lowest finish of the season, continuing a trend of finishing 35th or worse in all six of his Sprint Cup starts at Phoenix International Raceway.
37. Brendan Gaughan, No. 62 Chevrolet, Premium Motorsports. Gaughan sits sixth in the standings in his regular circuit, the NASCAR XFINITY Series, but the results haven’t been there on the Sprint Cup side. His third start of the season in the Jay Robinson-owned ride marked his 45th career start in NASCAR’s top series.
38. Alex Kennedy, No. 33 Chevrolet, Circle Sport Racing. Kennedy started last in the Joe Falk-owned Chevy and recovered from a Turn 3 spin during the 16th lap. He wound up eight laps down in making his first Sprint Cup start of the year.
39. Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing. Smoke used brute force to complete two passes earlier in the race, but found close-quarters racing with Justin Allgaier to be his undoing in the 238th lap. Stewart scraped the wall again 52 laps later, ending his day. The three-time series champ has just 32 points, lowest among drivers who have run all four Sprint Cup events this year.
40. Sam Hornish Jr., No. 9 Ford, Richard Petty Motorsports. Involvement in the fourth yellow flag (for a solo spin) and the ninth caution period (for catching a piece of Tony Stewart‘s second crash of the day) doomed any chances at Phoenix, the site of his first NASCAR XFINITY Series victory. The Petty No. 9 spent plenty of time behind the wall for repairs, finishing 35 laps down at the end.
41. Brian Vickers, No. 55 Toyota, Michael Waltrip Racing. Vickers’ second start of the year went awry as he crossed the stripe to complete Lap 1, when he collided with Jimmie Johnson‘s car on the frontstretch. "What happened to all clear?" Vickers exclaimed, raising the possibility of miscommunication with his MWR spotter.
42. Michael Annett, No. 46 Chevrolet, HScott Motorsports. Annett’s car sputtered down on the apron in the 63rd lap, leading him to radio his crew: "Something rattling around in the drivetrain. … It’s in gear and nothing gets power to it." Once in the garage, crew chief Jay Guy issued a warning to the No. 46 crew: "The gear is burned up. Do not expose it to air, it will catch on fire." Annett eventually returned to the track, finishing 110 laps down. | Sign up for Scanner today to hear in-car audio
43. Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports. A blown right-rear tire sent Earnhardt’s car careening into the Turn 2 wall, severely damaging the rear end and snapping his streak of three top-five finishes to start the season. Earnhardt was uninjured and was at least able to joke about the situation, which happened suddenly in the 182nd lap. "They never tell you they are going to blow out, never," he said with a laugh. "You don’t ever have a warning."
MORE:
