Ryan Blaney after coming up short in Indy OT: 'I'm pissed ... it just sucks'

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Whenever a Team Penske driver straps into a race car at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the stakes are just a bit higher than usual.

Ryan Blaney was in position to win Sunday‘s Brickyard 400 for team owner Roger Penske — also the proprietor of the Brickyard — and it went awry in overtime, boiling it down to “lady luck.”

In a strategy-filled race that came down to the wire, Blaney appeared to be in the catbird seat with the laps winding down. No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson was hot on his heels, but both had enough fuel to get to the end of the scheduled checkered flag amid field-wide fuel concerns. They were chasing down Brad Keselowski, who was trying to stretch his fuel tanks a lofty 58 laps to the end.

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The race changed when Kyle Busch wrecked with a few laps remaining. Keselowski, running on fumes, opted not to pit but instead coasted to pit road as the field was coming to the green flag and he ran dry. That moved Larson into the inside of the front row, the lane the leader had picked all race long.

Larson made immediate work of Blaney’s No. 12 Ford on the restart in the preferred bottom line.

“I‘m the one getting screwed for it, and so the third-place guy is benefiting,” Blaney said in frustration after the race. “It‘s one of those weird … you don‘t see that very often at a place like this. If it was any other place, it‘s not going to be as bad because the second lane at all the other places, you can maintain. Here, it‘s a death sentence. You‘re not maintaining the lead from the top on the front row.”

Before the field got to Turn 1, the ninth caution of the race flew for a multi-car incident, which ultimately led to a 17-minute red flag for repairs to the wall. For the restart, Blaney lined up on the outside of the front row once again, and by Turn 2, he‘d lost second place to Tyler Reddick. Ryan Preece‘s No. 41 car was stuck on the backstretch, ultimately leading to a race-ending caution.
Blaney finished third, his first top-five result in seven Brickyard 400 starts.

“I‘m pissed,” Blaney bluntly stated. “I told my guys that I‘m ticked off, but I don‘t know who to be ticked off at. 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 benefited him and killed our race; any chance for us to win. That‘s what I‘m upset about. I‘m not mad at anybody. It‘s just lady luck that I‘m pissed off at. It just sucks.”

The biggest frustration for Blaney was he wouldn‘t have chosen the top lane for the first overtime had he known Keselowski was going to come to pit road. There was confusion on the No. 12 team radio about who was the control car.

With perhaps a bit of bias behind his logic, Blaney would have liked the field to have been reset and to choose his respective lane again. Ultimately, that would add at least another lap under caution where many of the frontrunners were tight on gas.

“I can easily say if the leader runs out (of fuel) coming to the restart zone and you have so long, wave off the green, re-choose because you‘re promoting the third-place guy now to where I get screwed,” Blaney added. ” … That‘s the only way it can be fair. I know that happened to me at Mid-Ohio in an Xfinity race in the rain. I lined up on the front row, but I would have chosen differently, and it started raining and the leader pitted coming to the green and it screwed my row. I think they can do it a little bit differently.”

The podium finish bumped Blaney up to fifth in the regular season standings. The No. 12 team is hitting its stride entering the two-week Olympic break, scoring four consecutive top-10 finishes for the first time in 2024.