Seven points from their opening six league matches equals unwated records set by David Moyes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as the Red Devils’ joint-worst start to a season since 1989.
And while Ten Hag has insisted he has given no thought to being sacked, the likes of Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Young and Jamie Redknapp were quick to slate the performance.
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Ten Hag said: “I’m not thinking about being sacked, not at all. We all made the decision to stay together.
“Ownership, staff, players, myself. We made the decision from a clear review of what we have to do.
“We knew it would take some time. We are on the same page together.”
But Neville took no prisoners in his analysis of the match as he labelled Man Utd “shocking” and a “disgrace”.
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Speaking on Sky Sports, he said: “The first half was as bad as it gets.
“This is a shocking day, a sobering day. This is a really bad day for Ten Hag.
“Today has shocked me about how low they have gone.”
Earlier in the afternoon before Fernandes’ dismissal, he said: “That sums up Manchester United in the first half. They have been an absolute disgrace.
Manchester United vs Tottenham Player Ratings
“It’s one of the worst performances I have seen under Ten Hag. And that is saying something. It is really bad.”
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Meanwhile, former Liverpool and Tottenham midfielder Redknapp admitted having some sympathy for Ten Hag following the “embarrassing” display.
He said: “It gets to a point where you almost feel sorry for the manager as well. He looks completely out of his depth, he looks like he’s struggling to motivate his team.
“Man Utd and Ten Hag are going backwards. You can’t complain anymore, he’s got his back four in place, he’s got all the players at his disposal – there’s no excuses.
“They are rock bottom right now. I just don’t see where they can go from here. They’re as bad as I’ve seen a United side.
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“It’s embarrassing. A club of this stature shouldn’t be producing performances like that.”
While fellow ex-Man Utd title winner Ashley Young added: “Man Utd didn’t give anything. There was no effort. There was no work rate.”
Five-time Premier League winner Rio Ferdinand took to his YouTube channel moments after full-time to rage about the display.
He said: “An absolute p*** poor performance, I’ve got to be honest.
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“Powder-puff, embarrassing, no real idea it seemed, no real fight.
“Second half a little bit of a fight here and there but a distinct lack of quality.”
Approximately 90 guests were invited from all over the world – including from Los Angeles, Miami, Sweden, Finland and Dubai – with Muguruza’s former coach Conchita Martinez and ex-doubles partner Carla Suarez Navarro among them.
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The ceremony in Marbella last weekend was conducted in four languages – Spanish, English, Swedish and Finnish.
Muguruza – who celebrated her 31st birthday on Tuesday – told HOLA! in Spain: “It’s a total movie.
“I was inspired by the golden age of Hollywood, by those dresses worn by Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, which are elegant and beautiful and flattering.
“I knew I would marry him even before he asked me.
THE absence of line judges at Wimbledon will be a sad sight.
For as long as I can remember, the men and women decked out in their Ralph Lauren outfits have been part of the furniture at the All England Club.
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Yes, they provided some mild entertainment on the court when one would call “fault” with plenty of extra, and unnecessary, gusto and volume that boomed around Centre Court, prompting a snigger from the fans.
Then there was the ongoing game of dodgeball they had to play when a big serve nailed a mammoth ace down the line and they had to take rapid evasive action or take a whack to the top of the head.
And challenges provided some audience participation, excitedly joining in the clapping countdown before the inevitable “oooh” when the graphic showed just how close the ball was to landing in or out.
Purely objectively, Wimbledon’s decision to replace line judges with Hawk-Eye Live makes total sense.
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The accuracy and consistency of calls in real-time will speed things up, save time and should mark the end of arguments over the tight incorrect calls – well, until the technology malfunctions.
And Wimbledon’s hand was somewhat forced to ditch tradition for their standing in tennis.
The Australian Open and US Open already use electronic line calling and the ATP Tour is adopting Hawk-Eye Live across all of its tournaments from 2025.
Wimbledon’s refusal to comply would leave them lagging behind and exposed to the threat of needless controversy over human error.
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But the impact – as is so often the case in these decisions – has ramifications further down, below the surface with very little impact on Wimbledon’s Championships or the players.
It is on the line judges themselves.
Approximately 300 officials – aged from 18 to 80 – covered more than 650 matches at Wimbledon.
A fraction travel internationally with the circuit but the vast majority of those are part-time line judges based in the UK, earning up to £180 per day to work at the prestigious tournament and their chance to play their part at Wimbledon.
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For many, they will help out at British tournaments throughout the year, spurred on by the possibility of taking to the lawns of the All England Club.
But it is understood many of those officials would be reluctant to work at the lower-level tournaments without the carrot of Wimbledon dangling in the summer.
That in turn will put a major stumbling block in the pathway for British tennis umpires, who grind up through the ranks to reach the pinnacle of the sport.
Like football with referees, tennis needs umpires and line judges.
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So the inability to call “out” at Wimbledon could prove to be a major “fault” for the future of the UK’s tennis officials and therefore the state of the sport on these shores.
“He’s a mix, like me. I’m half-Venezuelan and half-Spanish, so we understand each other. We share that feeling of being citizens of the world.”
Muguruza thrashed Venus Williams in the 2017 final at the All England Club, adding her Wimbledon crown to the French Open title she collected the previous year when she beat Venus’ sister Serena.
She lost two further Grand Slam finals – at Wimbledon to Serena in 2015 and then to Sofia Kenin at the Australian Open in 2020.
Every now and then, boxing makes its way into the headlines of the MMA news cycle. The past month, MMA saw plenty of crossover, with most headlines surrounding arguably the most powerful man in the sport – UFC CEO Dana White.
With plenty to digest, MMA Junkie’s Brian Garcia, Nolan King, Mike Bohn, and host Gorgeous George discussed the latest boxing headlines in MMA with guest Alan Dawson.
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Watch their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s complete episode of “Spinning Back Clique” below on YouTube.
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Monday LIVE on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel at noon ET. You can also find each episode on your favorite podcast platforms – including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more – on Tuesday mornings.
Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.
Sho Tsuboi scored his second win of the Super Formula season in Saturday’s opener at Fuji Speedway to close to within half a point of championship leader Tomoki Nojiri.
TOM’S driver Tsuboi surged from seventh on the grid to second in the opening three laps of the race to put himself in a strong position to challenge early leader Nojiri.
The top two circulated in close quarters for the opening stint, with Tsuboi making a brief challenge on Nojiri before settling back behind his Mugen championship rival until the two leaders made their mandatory pitstops at mid-distance.
It was Nojiri who was first to pull the trigger on lap 21 of 41, with Tsuboi coming in the following lap and then holding off Nojiri on his out lap on cold tyres.
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Both drivers slipped behind early stoppers Ayumu Iwasa and Kakunoshin Ota, with Nojiri also falling victim to Kamui Kobayashi, who was another driver to clear his tyre change early.
With the benefit of his fresh rubber, Tsuboi caught and passed Dandelion driver Ota on lap 27, and then proceeded to close down Iwasa’s four-second lead in short order.
Ayumu Iwasa, TEAM MUGEN
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
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Arriving on Iwasa’s tail on lap 31, Tsuboi cleared the Red Bull junior on the following lap to take a lead he would never lose, opening up a 4.4-second gap to take his second win of the season and the fourth of his Super Formula career.
Mugen’s Iwasa held on for his third runner-up spot of the season, while Kobayashi passed a struggling Ota to claim his first podium finish since 2019 in third place.
As Ota faded, Tadasuke Makino moved up to fourth in the other Dandelion car, having left his pit stop later, limiting the damage after a tough qualifying session left him starting ninth.
Nirei Fukuzumi came home fifth in the second KCMG car after a slow start from pole left him in the same position at the end of the opening lap, passing Nojiri on the very final lap.
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Nojiri’s sixth-place finish means his championship advantage over new nearest rival Tsuboi is cut to just half a point, with Makino only three points behind with three races left.
De Vries recovered from a lowly 18th-place grid slot to finish two places ahead of Impul teammate Yuji Kunimoto.
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Both Toshiki Oyu (Inging) and Iori Kimura (B-Max Racing) dropped out with mechanical issues, while Sena Sakaguchi (Inging) was a lap down after stalling on the grid.
Hiroki Otsu’s TGM Grand Prix car was wheeled into the garage before the start, but he rejoined the race and finished a lap down behind Sakaguchi.
Drivers typically will walk a track the morning before they participate in practice to take a look at the surface.
For the race next Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, some have already gone and walked the track.
Charlotte Motor Speedway changed the road course infield portion to where the main turn in the infield portion comes as the cars approach the crest of a hill, meaning their braking point is during an incline where they really can’t see what’s ahead of them in the turn.
Shortly after that blind turn, the next turn back to the oval portion of the track is a tighter one. The frontstretch chicane also is a little tighter.
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“It’s set up for chaos, truthfully,” Denny Hamlin said. “I think that they were very strategic, making sure to put us to a decision what might be fast — the normal racing line will be fast, but there will be an option to short cut it and just wipe out whoever’s in front of you.
“Whatever reason would we have changed it other than to create more chaos and things like that? And I certainly think it’ll be that way.”
Why would NASCAR want chaos? Well, it is the elimination race of the second round of the Cup Series playoffs.
NASCAR’s version of the playoffs — where those outside the playoffs still compete each week as well — runs over the final 10 races of the season. The first three rounds consist of three races, and the four winless drivers in the round lowest in points are eliminated, setting up four drivers who are eligible for the title in the season finale at Phoenix with the driver who finishes the best (they don’t get stage points) crowned the champion.
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In each round, the advancing drivers’ point totals are reset (2000 in the first round, 3000 in the quarterfinal round, 4000 in the semifinal round, 5000 for the championship) with the playoff points they earned during the season added to their total except for the championship race.
Quarterfinal round: Kansas (winner-Ross Chastain, not a playoff driver), Talladega (winner-Ricky Stenhouse Jr., not a playoff driver), Charlotte (road course). Advanced after two races: Byron on points.
Here’s my playoff rankings based on best shot to win the title to the worst shot.
1. Kyle Larson (Last Week: 2) Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet Position: 3rd, +52 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 13th
Larson is in the best shape he has been in the entire playoffs and needs just 16 points (21st if no stage points) no matter what anyone else does at Charlotte. He’s good enough at road courses that he should earn some stage points and possibly lock himself in before the end of Stage 2. Considering how bad he normally is at superspeedways, the fact that he finished fourth Sunday at Talladega is a good sign for what’s to come.
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Prediction: Champion (no change)
2. William Byron (LW: 3) Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet Position: Advanced on points 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 2nd
For all those worried about Byron’s summer slump, what are you going to worry about now? Byron has nothing to worry about at the Charlotte road course and he can already start concentrating on the next round. And he already knows he should be good at those tracks.
Prediction: Championship 4 but no title (no change)
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3. Christopher Bell (LW: 1) Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota Position: 3rd, +57 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 15th
Bell needs just 11 points (26th with no stage points) to advance no matter what anyone else does at Charlotte. That certainly is doable — he earned 15 points in the stages alone last year. His biggest challenge looking ahead will be the next round, where he has pulled off some wins in his career but has had frustrating finishes earlier this year at Las Vegas and Martinsville.
Prediction: Championship 4 but no title (no change)
4. Chase Elliott (LW: 4) Hendrick Motorsports No. 9 Chevrolet Position: 8th, +13 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 9th
The pressure will be on Elliott to hold serve at the Charlotte road course, and there aren’t many places he’d rather go for him to do that. He was top 10 in both stages there last year and was ninth at the finish. He has two wins and four top-10 career finishes at the track. He should be OK as long as nothing crazy happens. The tough thing is crazy things do happen at that track.
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Prediction: Eliminated in semifinal round (no change)
5. Ryan Blaney (LW: 5) Team Penske No. 12 Ford Position: 6th, +25 on playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 12th
Blaney left Talladega just three points worse than he entered as he left 25 points above the cutline — which isn’t a horrible thing considering he was wrecked out early. He can clinch at the Charlotte road course with 43 points but shouldn’t need that many. He was 12th there last year, one of only two races in his six starts at the track where he hasn’t finished in the top 10. The defending Cup champion just needs to shake the bad luck and he’ll be OK.
Prediction: Eliminated in semifinal round (no change)
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6. Denny Hamlin (LW: 6) Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota Position: 4th, +30 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 37th
Hamlin got a lucky break at Talladega, where he struggled so bad that he had lost the draft and missed the big wreck. He clinches at Charlotte with 38 points, and he is a solid road-course racer where even if he needs close to that many, he should be good. But hold on — his best finish this year in the four road-course races was 14th. If you’re a Hamlin fan, you should feel good and nervous all at the same time. You’re also probably used to that.
Prediction: Championship 4 but no title (change from eliminated in semifinal round)
7. Tyler Reddick (LW: 7) 23XI Racing No. 45 Toyota Position: 7th, +14 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 6th
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Reddick has three top-10s (including two top-5s) in the four road-course races this year so he should feel good that he can perform at the high level he will need to at Charlotte. He was sixth there last year, leading 27 laps and finishing first and fourth in the stages. Is it possible to put the last five playoff races, though, out of his mind?
Prediction: Eliminated in semifinal round (change from making Championship 4)
8. Alex Bowman (LW: 8) Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet Position: 5th, +26 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 8th
Bowman won at the Chicago road course and he has two career top-5 finishes at the Charlotte road course, where he was eighth a year ago (but 19th and 18th in the stages). He can clinch with 42 points no matter what anyone else does. He shouldn’t need that much and just needs a good day. The way he is running in the playoffs, that shouldn’t be a problem.
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Prediction: Eliminated in semifinal round (no change)
9. Joey Logano (LW: 9) Team Penske No. 22 Ford Position: 9th, -13 the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 5th
Logano doesn’t have a top-10 on a road course this year but does have two top-5s and five top-10s at the Charlotte road course in his career. So which stat will mean more for the two-time Cup champion? One thing is for sure, he will be determined after a wreck at Talladega spoiled his chance to enter Charlotte with a buffer instead of needing to rally.
Prediction: Eliminated in quarterfinal round (no change)
10. Austin Cindric (LW: 11) Team Penske No. 2 Ford Position: 11th, -29 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 25th
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Cindric is a road-course ace, but that hasn’t translated to the Charlotte road course, where he has not finished in the top 10 in his two starts. He didn’t earn stage points at the event last year, and he will need to earn plenty this year just to have a shot at the end. Talladega was the place for him to gain ground and the big wreck kept that from happening.
Prediction: Eliminated in quarterfinal round (no change)
11. Chase Briscoe (LW: 12) Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Ford Position: 12th, -32 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 28th
Briscoe is in pretty much a must-win situation and while he is decent on road courses, that will be a tall ask for him to accomplish next Sunday. He has one top-10 in four road-course races this year.
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Prediction: Eliminated in quarterfinal round (no change)
12. Daniel Suarez (LW: 10) Trackhouse Racing No. 99 Chevrolet Position: 10th, -20 on the playoff cutoff 2023 Charlotte Road Course Finish: 33rd
Suarez has no top-10s on road courses this year and no top-10s and an average finish of 27th at the Charlotte road course. So it would take a historically better-than-average performance for him to win or rally from the 20-point deficit to advance.
Prediction: Eliminated in quarterfinal round (no change)
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NASCAR Cup Series: YellaWood 500 highlights
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. continued to show he can race well on the drafting tracks as he added to the growing list of non-playoff drivers who have salvaged their season with at least a victory.
Stenhouse edged Brad Keselowski across the finish line Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway to earn his first Cup win since the 2023 Daytona 500.
“It was a lot of hard work this season just trying to find a little bit of speed, but we knew that this track is one of ours to come get,” said Stenhouse, who drives for the single-car JTG Daugherty Racing team co-owned by former NBA star Brad Daugherty.
Stenhouse was out front when a 28-car pileup — the biggest (as far as number of cars) in NASCAR Cup Series history — took out many potential winning cars as well as either wounding or knocking out several playoff drivers.
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With a third-place finish, William Byron clinched a spot on points in NASCAR’s semifinal round (Round of 8) while 11 drivers will vie for the final seven spots next Sunday at the Charlotte road course.
Takeaways from Talladega, where the only playoff drivers to finish in the top 10 were Byron, Kyle Larson (fourth), Christopher Bell (sixth) and Denny Hamlin (10th).
Big, Big Wreck
The 28-car pileup with four laps remaining was triggered when Joey Logano got into the back of Brad Keselowski, who turned Austin Cindric in front of the entire field as they ran in the bottom lane.
Keselowski said as they were trying to lap Todd Gilliland, who had lost the draft because of a pit-road speeding penalty, they got a little too stretched out and then the draft sucked them in too quickly.
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“When [Gilliland] blocked the bottom lane with all the Fords in it, it caused us all to react — we stretched the rubber band and it snapped back down the backstretch,” Keselowski said. “I caught the 2 car [of Cindric] and checked up [off the throttle] a little bit and the 22 [of Logano] came and hit me and all three of us ran into each other.
“I don’t really think Austin or Joey did anything wrong. I don’t know what I could do any different.”
Joey Logano on the big wreck and why he didn’t have fun at Talladega
Cindric and Logano, the two playoff drivers knocked out of the wreck, lamented how they seemed to be in solid position with all the Fords working together.
“It’s just an off-center push and that’s the easiest thing to spin a guy out. … I don’t see any fault on Joey’s end there — he wasn’t locked to the 6 [of Keselowski] while the 6 gave me the push,” Cindric said. “Was it frustrating? Yeah. I couldn’t be any more pissed than I am, but it’s not going to change anything.”
Both Cindric and Logano will need to have stellar performances at Charlotte next week and need help to advance.
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“The 2 got out there a little bit more than he has been, and the 21 [of Harrison Burton] gave me a shove and transferred that to the 6 and he got to the 2 with a fair amount of steam,” Logano said. “It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s not Brad’s fault.”
Blaney Furious With Bowman
Defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney was out of the race by the end of the second stage as Alex Bowman tried to give him a push and ended up turning him.
“The 48 [of Bowman] just drove straight through me in the tri-oval,” Blaney said. “He just wrecked the [expletive] out of me. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I thought he would have more sense than that, but obviously he didn’t.
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“I see him hauling ass toward me and you think, ‘You kind of have to lift a little bit. You can’t just run wide open through somebody in the tri-oval.’ But he did.”
Ryan Blaney on frustration after a failed push from Alex Bowman
Bowman said it was his mistake.
“It was a bad push,” Bowman said. “I lifted as I rolled up to him but certainly not enough. I had been pushed there a couple times and if I would have gotten to him 100 feet later, he would have been OK.
“He was still turning enough that it obviously hooked him. … I was just trying to push him forward and obviously it was a bad push.”
But with the big accident in the race, Blaney left the track in the same position as he started — 25 points above the cutline.
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NASCAR Adjusts Wrecked Car Rules
NASCAR didn’t announce a change in interpretation of its damaged vehicle policy prior to the race but made an obvious adjustment to it following the big wreck.
NASCAR previously had determined that if a car couldn’t get to pit road under its own power after having contact with another car or the wall, the driver must get out of the car and be out of the race.
But after Josh Berry didn’t seem to have much damage and was knocked out of the race last week in the opening lap at Kansas, NASCAR reconsidered that strict interpretation and towed some vehicles back to pit road Sunday.
“Our goal is never to put good cars out of the race,” NASCAR Senior Vice President Elton Sawyer said. “Based on our experiences last week at Kansas and what happened there with the 4 car [of Berry], we felt like we probably could have made a different call there.
“We had a good car that probably just needed tires. As we went into this, we wanted to err on the side of the competitor.”
After the big wreck, NASCAR eventually lifted the red flag (which stops the race with no work allowed to be done on the cars) to yellow with the expectation that the caution car would then begin leading the cars stopped on the track back around with the race resumed.
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But after NASCAR went from red to yellow, officials realized they needed to do more cleanup, leaving some cars still on the track waiting to roll and get to pit road for repairs while the cars already on pit road at the time the race was stopped could start working on them.
“We still had safety equipment that was still moving, so for safety for all, held the caution vehicle a little longer,” Sawyer said. “Totally understand the competitors [arguing] that we had cars on pit road that got a little more opportunity to do some work.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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