Kevin Harvick on second at Phoenix: "Our (car) was better"

He came very close to picking up his first win of the 2020 season and the 10th of his career at the 1-mile track.

Twice in the final 13 laps – once in regulation and once in overtime – Harvick lined up alongside race winner Joey Logano on a restart but could not get close enough to even try to nudge Logano out of way.

Even Logano knew what was coming: “I knew racing Kevin was going to be hard. I was figuring I was going to get hit, so I throttled up in the corner so much, I thought he was going to give me the bump-n-run, which I expected, wouldn’t blame him for.”

But it didn’t happen as Harvick was left with a frustrating runner-up finish, despite leading more laps than Logano (67-60) and taking the Stage 1 victory.

In part to an early wreck by former leader Ryan Blaney, Harvick took over the series points lead. In four races so far this season, Harvick lacks a victory but hasn’t finished worse than ninth.

Asked what Logano had but he didn’t at the end of the race, Harvick said, “He just had control of the race. After we pitted there, I got stuck behind a couple of cars there, lost five or six spots. He got by and got control of the race.

“He got to restart where he wanted to. Our (car) was better, especially when we could put it in front of his. We just didn’t get the control of the race back there, and he was able to get by us on that restart where I got hung up.”