Aric Almirola, the driver of the #10 Smithfield Ford, leads a pack of cars the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 15, 2018, in Bristol, Tennessee. Photo – Robert Laberge/Getty Images

Aric Almirola was like a stealth missile in Monday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. He wasn’t fighting for the lead at the front of the field, but his car got progressively better as the race unfolded and the top lane finally started paying dividends.

Almirola rolled home in sixth place, posting his best finish of the season, his third top-ten in eight races and his seventh result in the top-15. That consistency has the driver of the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford 11th in the series standings.

But Almirola felt he could have gotten more, had circumstances been slightly different.

“We worked on (the car) all day,” Almirola said. “We weren’t very good (Sunday) at all. Finally, when the track moved to the top, our car got a lot better, so we kind of were prepared for that, and our car was kind of set up to run the top, and I was just miserable trying to run the bottom.

“My car was really, really bad on the bottom, and we finally got it to where it was going pretty good up top and the caution would come out. I feel like if the race would have been a normal race, and we would have run a lot of green flag up top, we would have been pretty good. It’s a good day.

“I’m a little disappointed with sixth, but, at the same time, I’m happy and pleased that we rebounded after a bad day in Texas.  To come out of here with a sixth is a great day and I feel like we could have got more if it would have stayed green. I wish we would have run like 300 more laps.”