Late-race restarts saved the day for Keselowski at New Hampshire

For nearly the entire 300-lap race, Keselowski was the top-performing Ford driver, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot as he remained mired anywhere from 11th to 16th.

But a rash of cautions near the end, and some new tires, helped propel him into the top-10 in the final 30 laps and eventually he ended up fourth and was making up serious ground on the top three as the race ended.

Keselowski’s No. 2 Team Penske team was the only Ford to finish in the top-10.

“That was a slugger. We weren’t nearly as fast as we wanted to be but my guys executed so well down the stretch to finish it out,” Keselowski told Motorsport.com. “It’s kind of opposite of the spring race where we didn’t close it out but ran fourth or fifth the whole race.

“We were near as fast as we wanted to be, but great execution on pit road, great execution with the pit calls and then the last few restarts went our way with being in the right lane on the restarts, which is so, so important – and also staying out of trouble.”

Even though he remains without a victory in the Chase, his pair of top-five finishes in the first two races make Keselowski a virtual lock to advance to the second round.

He currently leads the point standings with a one-point advantage over last week’s race winner, Martin Truex Jr.

Keselowski said he wasn’t necessarily surprised he and teammate Joey Logano (who finished 11th) didn’t run up front as much as they did in the July race.

“To be honest, that rules change by NASCAR at the last minute this week was not very favorable to our team,” he said. “We’ve got to work to find a little more speed, for sure.”