'You can definitely tell you're cranking' - Hildebrand

"At the end of the day, it has a lot to do with how well the team is prepped for coming here and the amount of information that I sort of have at your disposal to get out and go do it," Hildebrand said. "With the different tire comes a completely different feel sometimes to how the track works.

"I think you could make a case at least for coming in sort of fresh, that there are some advantages to that, just that I don't have any preconceived ideas about what's going to happen or how the car is going to feel necessarily. But yeah, I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't feel good going out and putting a couple laps down and doing it to where we felt they were legit. We're not just out there toying around. It felt good.

"It's a continuation from last year," Carpenter said of his team's form in Saturday's third of four sessions of official testing. "We were fortunate enough to be part of the tire test team here last fall, so you know, in that regard I think we had a little bit of a jump start on this tire, maybe relative to some of the other guys.

"Obviously we're happy to be quick right now, but the important thing is having a relatively quick car for long runs tonight, so we wanted to make sure we had enough tires to give ourselves the opportunity to improve – you want to leave feeling like you've got a car capable of winning. We've got a little work to do for that, but I think, like JR said, we were pretty close to being in the window of where we want to be when we got here, and now we're just trying to find little things here and there to make it better."

Both drivers said that the differences in feel between fast and ultra-fast laps at Phoenix was subtle, but noticeable in the cockpit.

"You kind of know your gear strategy and all that kind of stuff, so just knowing where you're at in the RPM band and kind of feeling where you've got that punch coming off the corners – in some ways that's still a data thing, because you're watching it and you have lights and all that kind of stuff, but you can feel that type of stuff," said Hildebrand. "Like going through [Turns] Three and Four, if you had a good run through there and you're coming off the corner with some gusto, like you definitely know that.

"The sort of macro differences here are, are you having to lift or are you not – but even within that little range, if you've got the balance you're looking for, you can definitely tell you're cranking."

Agreed Carpenter: "Yeah, I kind of feel like once you get under a 19.5 [second lap] you can tell the difference from that from a 19.8. It's asking more of everything, and you can feel that through the tires and even your body. Whether you're talking a 19.0 or a 19.3, you're hauling it either way."