Dominant Keselowski fades late at Michigan

Brad Keselowski's disappointment was clear.

"I feel like this is probably the best race I've run as a driver here," he said, "and it just wasn't enough."

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The pole-sitter Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, Keselowski, a Michigan native, finished 17th. While Keselowski said his Team Penske group left it all on the track, the result seemed unlikely given the way the No. 2 Ford performed during the first half of the race.

After starting up front, Keselowski ran away with the win in stage 1. He also led 105 of the race's first 161 laps.

"The team did a good job," Keselowski said. "We executed in qualifying and all of those things, and we really made the most out of everything we had today; it just didn't come out our way."

While he swapped the lead back and forth with Martin Truex Jr. at the start of the third stage, once Keselowski lost it for good he started to fade. Truex took control of the race and Keselowski was never again a factor.

"It just didn't come together there at the end, but it was nice to lead a bunch of laps," Keselowski said. "That was good and something I was really proud of, but I just didn't have enough to really run with [Erik Jones] and [Truex]. We tried a little strategy to kind of get something out of it, but the way it all played out I ended up getting the bottom lane on the restarts and got absolutely swallowed.

"We tried. We put in as much effort as we could. We knew we didn't have as much as those two, but we gave it 100 percent effort and I was really proud of my team for that."

If there was anything Keselowski could wrap his arms around, it was the acknowledgement of having more chances in the future to get a home track win.