Denny Hamlin: Ryan Blaney's 'unhinged moment' heading into NASCAR overtime was completely justified
Ryan Blaney has earned a reputation during his NASCAR Cup Series career for being a certified hothead on his radio when things don’t go his way, just as we saw in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In this instance, Denny Hamlin believes Blaney was justified in his “unhinged moment” on the radio after what occurred on the first overtime restart. Brad Keselowski, running P1 at the time, ran out of fuel just before getting to the start-finish line. With Ryan Blaney, the P2 car, on the outside, Larson took Keselowski’s place on the inside on the restart. Larson got by Blaney coming out of Turns 1 and 2 and took the white flag as the leader on the following overtime attempt when NASCAR threw the caution for Ryan Preece’s spin on the back straightaway.
Blaney wasn’t happy and Hamlin doesn’t blame him one bit, he said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast.
Denny Hamlin defends Ryan Blaney’s radio outburst in Brickyard 400
“The 12 was in position to win the race and then he obviously lost his sh*t when he saw that the 5 pulled up and then not only pulled up, but they left the same timeish and the 5 cleared him in Turn 1. It was an unhinged moment which was so deservingly so,” Hamlin said. “This is one where you gotta give Blaney a bye on this one because he goes from controlling the race to not only not controlling the race… when the 6 pulls off to then relinquishing the spot that he had.
“He goes from second to still second and now we got a new player in the game. It was very unfortunate for the 12 that the 5 got the inside lane there. I mean what do you do about it? I’m not sure. I think that the 6 could have not pulled off in a more worse time. I don’t know how the 6 thought they were gonna make it anyway. Again, if we didn’t have these stupid fu*king fuel mileage races, we wouldn’t have this problem.
“But I guess that could happen anytime during that lap of caution with one to go. So, the rule is the 6 chooses the bottom and then in Turn 1, he runs out. So, they still gotta go all the way around the racetrack. Blaney could have at least had time to gripe, he would have not gotten anywhere because the rule says the lane just slides up, but damn, he would’ve chosen the bottom for sure.
“Could you imagine how unhinged he would’ve been if he had to go the entire cool-down lap, the entire yellow flag one to go seeing the 5 beside him knowing he’s done? And I love that Blaney told Jonathan [Hassler], they were like, ‘hey, it’s not over, we gotta keep fighting.’ He’s like, ‘what are you talking about? We’re on the top, you can’t win from the top.’ That is true, not in the Next Gen era anyway. Holy cow, what a change of events. Blaney was definitely gonna win the race. Kyle won when he got to slide from third to first there.”
Ryan Blaney goes crazy on radio after first overtime restart in Brickyard 400
Blaney’s race was indeed lost at that moment. With Larson on the inside, there was nothing Blaney could do. Such was life at IMS on Sunday, where the outside line had hardly any momentum.
Speaking with his team on the radio, Blaney accused NASCAR of giving the win to Larson, whom he referred to as its “fu*king golden boy.”
“There’s no way they should’ve let that go green,” Blaney said. “That’s ridiculous. They just gave it to him [Larson]. It’s fu*king over, I’m on the top. I ain’t gonna win from the top. Gave it to fu*king golden boy. Son of a b*tch.”