MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Five Ford drivers combined to lead 296-of-400 laps in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville, but a late-race caution coupled with pit strategy shuffled the deck enough to keep Mustang out of victory lane.

Joey Logano, who was forced to start at the rear of the field due to an unapproved adjustment in pre-race, struggled to get through the pack until a timely caution with 57 laps to go enabled him to gain the track position he had been looking for all day.

Logano stayed on the track while fellow Ford driver Chase Briscoe pitted from the lead. That enabled Logano to inherit the lead for a restart with 46 laps remaining, but Kyle Larson took two tires and was fifth on the ensuing restart. The proved to be enough time for him to catch and pass Logano with 29 laps remaining and drive to the victory.

Logano held on for second while Briscoe drove from seventh on the restart to fifth. Aric Almirola, who stayed out like Logano, held on for sixth with Ryan Blaney seventh.

Ryan Preece earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole on Saturday and dominated the first half of the race. He led all 80 laps in capturing Stage 1 and was still leading the field after 135 laps, but a pit road speeding penalty while leaving his box sent him back to 30th. He spent the rest of the day trying to maneuver through traffic and ultimately finished 15th.

The NASCAR Cup Series heads to the circuit’s biggest track as Talladega Superspeedway will play host on Sunday, April 23 at 3 p.m. on Fox, MRN and SiriusXM satellite radio.

NCS RACE TOP-10 FINISHERS
1st -- Kyle Larson
2nd -- Joey Logano
3rd -- Martin Truex Jr.
4th -- Denny Hamlin
5th-- Chase Briscoe
6th -- Aric Almirola
7th -- Ryan Blaney
8th -- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
9th -- Bubba Wallace
10th -- Chase Elliott

REMAINING FORD FINISHERS
14th – Chris Buescher
15th – Ryan Preece
19th – Michael McDowell
20th – Kevin Harvick
24th – Brad Keselowski
25th – Todd Gilliland
29th – Harrison Burton
33rd – Austin Cindric
34th – Zane Smith
36th – JJ Yeley

JOEY LOGANO, No. 22 Verizon 5G Ford Mustang
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE BATTLE WITH LARSON AT THE END? 
“I knew the only way he was gonna get by me is he was gonna have to get physical. I had to make the car wide. I had very little chance to win it when he had the two tires. He just got through traffic too quick for us, but, overall, it still was the right call to get us on the front row. You never know, you have a caution at the end and some things can happen, but, overall, I’m very proud of the Verizon Mustang team. We were not good. We went down a lap two times throughout the race and got one lucky dog and one lucky caution and then just some good strategy from Paul and getting the car better. We were awful to start and he did a good job of getting me competitive at least and putting me in position to do something there at the end. There are days when you’re mad about second, most of the time you are, but days like today you’re pretty happy to see the front at the end.”

HOW MUCH WORSE WERE YOU ON OLD TIRES THERE? 
“Two tenths, apparently. He caught me so quick and there was still 25-30 to go and I was like, ‘Aw, geez. I don’t have a chance here, but I’ll make it wide for awhile.’ I knew he was gonna have to get physical, which is fine. That’s Martinsville racing. He should. I tried to play defense as best as I could and eventually he got underneath me.”

WOULD YOU HAVE TAKEN SECOND AT THE START OF THE DAY WITH WHERE YOU STARTED? 
“Yeah. After the second stage I would have been stoked about second place.”

DID THE NEW PACKAGE DO ANYTHING TO IMPROVE THE RACING HERE? 
“No. I’m pretty sure everybody kind of saw it. It’s really challenging to pass still. It’s kind of interesting how some tracks it’s definitely improved it and at some tracks it hasn’t. Richmond was a much better race. Here at Martinsville, I’d say we probably have to go back to the drawing board to try and find something else to help racing a little bit more, but part of it, too, you’ve got understand is that all of the cars run the same speed. They gave us a box with cars that are all identical. Well, we’re all gonna end up running that same speed for the most part. When all the cars are within a tenth of each other, you can’t pass. There’s got to be more speed differential through the field.”

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang
HOW MUCH OF A STATEMENT WAS TODAY? 
“It would have been more of a statement if we won the race, obviously. I thought as a company we had a really good day. All four cars were in contention. I felt like a Stewart-Haas car probably should have won the race and we just couldn’t catch the breaks we needed there at the end, but, overall, a great day. That’s something that as a company we needed to go and run up front. All four cars were really competitive. I wish one of us would have won the race, but you’ll have that. We’ll go on to next week and hopefully we can continue this speed and this momentum as a company.”

DID YOU HAVE THEM COVERED IF THAT CAUTION DIDN’T COME OUT? 
“I would have like to think so. I mean, having a two-second lead and just kind of riding trying to maintain that two-second lead. I thought our car was really, really good at that point. Even with the caution I thought we were gonna be OK, and then I thought we were gonna stay out, and then at the end it looked like more guys were gonna come down pit road, so we decided to come down with them. Obviously, Monday morning quarterback. It’s a lot easier to say you should have stayed out, but we didn’t. We win and lose as a team. At the time, I thought that was gonna be OK with the amount of laps we still had to go, but track position was obviously super important. It was really hard to pass. Even if you were better than a guy, they could just kind of hang on. It seemed like tires, it took them 50-60 laps for them to fall off even if you had older tires. We probably made the wrong decision at the end, but at the time and the perspective that we had, we thought it was gonna be the best decision. Sometimes you make the wrong one, but it’s hard when you’re in the lead because everybody normally does the opposite of you. That’s part of it and you just move on.”

DENNY HAMLIN THOUGHT THE RACE HERE WAS WORSE THAN LAST YEAR? DO YOU AGREE? 
“I thought it was honestly about the same. I thought inside the car we were maybe slipping and sliding around maybe 10 percent more. It was still obviously extremely hard to pass. Yeah, I thought it was five to 10 percent better even though there’s still a really long way to go. I did think in the driver’s seat you made a little bit more of a difference. The problem is when you can downshift and things like that, these cars have so much forward drive and obviously not a lot of power coming off the corner, so everybody is kind of the same speed. It’s unfortunate. I wish we turned a page there with the package. Like I said, I thought it was a little bit better, but it needs to be a lot more better.”

RYAN PREECE, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang
“I sped off pit road, I guess. That ultimately cost us the track position. We had a really fast race car, so once we got in the back it was so hard to do anything, so that’s on me. I’ll take blame for that. I was trying to beat them out and ultimately got snapped speeding.”

DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD SPEED IN THAT BOX? 
“I didn’t think we could, to be honest with you, but I guess it’s my job to know that. It’s unfortunate, but when we had track position I think it showed that we had a really fast HaasTooling Ford Mustang, but you can’t do those things. You can’t make mistakes.”

RESULTS ASIDE, IS THAT FIRST STAGE INDICATIVE OF WHAT THIS TEAM IS CAPABLE OF DOING? 
“Absolutely. I pride myself on not making mistakes, so that was pretty brutal there, but, like I’ve said, we have a fast race car and really felt like we could have probably swept the stages and ran top three or top five. We were just as good as anybody, but it’s really tough. Dirty air against the pack. You didn’t want to smash them out of the way, but it was really hard to move around.”

DID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET BACK UP THERE AFTER THE PENALTY? 
“That first run I think we climbed to 23rd or 21st, so I thought there was opportunity, but after three pit stops everybody else got their car that much better. You saw Joey, they stayed out and gained track position and he ran second. I mean, he was gonna go a lap down for awhile, so you can’t make mistakes.”

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang 
“It’s crazy that Martinsville is a track position race. The cars are so close and so competitive. I thought we were arguably the best car the first part of the race and then we got a little bit behind as the track changed and the car changed a little bit. Then after that, we got the car really good. Drew made some great adjustments and I thought we were arguably the best car. We went through that green flag pit sequence and then a caution comes out for a wheel and gives a lot of those guys just a free gift that stayed out. A lot of those guys we had lapped already in the race and it’s just so hard to pass that you give those guys track position and you start behind them on the same tires. It’s hard to pass.”

NASCAR XFINITY SERIES

• Cole Custer sat on the pole and finished a Ford-best 3rd on Saturday at Martinsville.
• Custer led the first 5 laps and ended up 3rd in all three stages of the 250-lap event.
• Brett Moffitt finished 9th while Riley Herbst was 30th after a potential top 10 run was spoiled with 27 laps to go when he got hit from behind and sent into the wall.
• After 8 races, Herbst (4th) is the highest Ford in the point standings while Custer is 8th.
• The NASCAR Xfinity Series travels to Talladega Superspeedway next and will race on Saturday, April 22 at 4 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES RECAP

• Zane Smith finished 3rd, Ty Majeski 4th and Ben Rhodes 6th in Friday’s rain-shortened race.
• The race saw 63-of-124 laps completed under caution as rain hampered the event and eventually ended 76 laps from the scheduled 200-lap distance.
• Smith won the pole, which was his second of the season and third of his career.
• Ford still holds down the top 3 spots in the point standings with Majeski holding the lead over Smith by 26 points. Rhodes is 3rd, 49 points out of the top spot.
• The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will have the next two weeks off before returning to the track on Saturday, May 6 at 8 p.m. ET (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).