Ryan Blaney was seething Sunday after a third-place finish at the Brickyard 400 that more or less came down to terrible luck.
Blaney was unhappy after a series of events went against him late in Sunday’s race. Leader Brad Keselowski ran out of gas and had to pit just before the green flag that began the final overtime lap of the race. Blaney was second at the time and had subsequently chosen to be in the outside lane for the restart, not wanting to get caught behind Keselowski if Keselowski ran out of fuel.
The timing, however, meant that everyone on Keselowski’s inside lane moved up, giving eventual winner Kyle Larson the inside track for the overtime restart. Blaney obviously would have chosen to restart behind Keselowski had he known that Keselowski would not even make it to the green flag.
.@keselowski runs out of fuel before the green!@dennyhamlin is caught in the pile-up on the restart! pic.twitter.com/bUHhZ0zzUP
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 21, 2024
Blaney was livid at the time, telling his crew that NASCAR “gave” the race to Larson, whom he derided as the “f—ing golden boy.”
Ryan Blaney is furious on the 12 radio about the race restarting when Brad Keselowski ran out gas and Kyle Larson moved to the front row. He says NASCAR just gave the race to Larson … “f**king golden boy.”
— Kelly Crandall (@KellyCrandall) July 21, 2024
After the race, Blaney was still furious, but admitted the finish was down to bad luck more than anything else.
#NASCAR … I asked Ryan Blaney if he was angry, frustrated or confused about what led to his 3rd-place finish. He used another word … pic.twitter.com/7cNrMuADKd
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) July 21, 2024
“I’m pissed. I told my guys, I’m ticked off, but I don’t know who to be ticked off at,” Blaney said. “There’s no one to be ticked off at. It’s just racing luck. The break that (Larson) got and the hardship that we got right there with that happening at that time just killed our race. We put ourselves in the perfect spot to win and just that weird circumstance, it just benefitted him and it just killed our race, any chance for us to win. That’s what I’m upset about. I’m not mad at anybody. That’s just lady luck.”
One could certainly argue that NASCAR should have allowed drivers to re-choose their lanes after Keselowski went to pit. Ultimately, though, that is not what happened.
Fortunately, Blaney is locked in for the playoffs. He has already been a winner twice this year, including on one particularly memorable occasion last month.
