NASCAR insiders opine on controversial overtime restart between Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney

Kyle Larson won the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, and Ryan Blaney was not happy after Larson took advantage of Brad Keselowski going to pit road before the second overtime restart. NASCAR insiders Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic weighed in on the overtime restart and whether NASCAR should have thrown the caution after Keselowski ran out of fuel.

“I disagree with Ryan Blaney’s point here. Yes, Larson does get the preferred position. Ryan Blaney said, ‘Oh, this is crap. They should have called a caution here,'” Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. …He chose the only thing he could do, which was take the outside of the front row. Would he have said ‘Well, I want to start behind Keselowski because he’s gonna run out of fuel?’ I don’t know.

“That would be a pretty tough thing to give up the front row not knowing what’s gonna happen and the guy could run out of fuel in front of you. He did the only thing he could, it was just ultimately just bad luck. I don’t think it’s worthy of a rule change to say well, in the future if that happens, you’ve got to make sure that you can’t do that. We’ve got to throw a caution, redo the whole field, let everybody choose all over again. Typically when somebody falls out, everybody moves up a lane. That’s the rule.”

Then Kyle Larson-Ryan Blaney incident is not ‘black or white’

Bianchi said the incident is not as clear as one would think. “It’s not black or white, and it’s not straightforward,” he said. “Part of what the problem is is the fact that Indianapolis is so big because it’s a two-and-a-half-mile racetrack. If you’re going to re-rack the field, you basically are going to have to run to more laps of caution. So then you’re extending this race out even more. You’re putting the fuel mileage question even more into question.

“This is not like this at every racetrack. What makes this unique, and it needs to be mentioned, is the outside lane here is at a disadvantage, a serious disadvantage compared to the inside lane. If you start on the inside, you have a significant advantage. Blaney referred to starting in the outside lane as a death sentence. …He should have the option of having the preferred lane.”

Blaney finished third on Sunday behind Tyler Reddick and Larson. The NASCAR Cup Series returned to the Indy oval after being away from the racetrack for three years.