A composed, but, subdued Stewart, who led 163 laps, said "I honestly think we had the car to beat today, we just gave it away. I don't know what happened on the pit stop there, but we had a miscue and had a penalty and had to go to the back, and unfortunately it kind of dealt our cards for us. Darian made a good call getting us the track position back, but it also showed everybody else that they could do it, too, and we couldn't run two and a half runs on a set of left side tires. Just shot ourselves in the foot two weeks in a row now."
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| Carl Edwards (Photo: Nigel Kinrade Autostock/Ford) |
Juan Pablo Montoya had realistic outlook "as Tony said, he had the fastest car, but our car was very good all day. We battled between sixth and eighth place and then a little bit better and a little bit better. It was good; we were getting better, but we just never closed in. We could make the car turn through the middle; we just couldn't touch the throttle and the other way around. It was just touch and go."
Marcos Ambrose had one of his better oval track finishes in fourth.
A punctured right front tire claimed Jeff Gordon. Kyle Busch had a tire problem, but, was eliminated with a blown engine.
Carl Edwards got his momentum back with the victory (his 19th in Sprint Cup), his third in five races after winning the closing two races of 2010 and a second place finish at Daytona.