Ryan Blaney weighs in on running of gas, costing him the win at Gateway

Last week Ryan Blaney experienced heartache just as he was about to take the white flag. No more fuel and his win was taken right from his very hands. This week the NASCAR champion has shrugged it off and is ready to move on to Sonoma.

When Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel before the last lap of the Gateway race, his teammate Austin Cindric was there to pick up the pieces. At least from a Team Penske perspective, things could have gone much worse at the end of the race.

On Saturday after qualifying, Ryan Blaney talked to the media about the fuel situation. It doesn’t seem like the team is going to linger on things too much.

“Gosh everyone makes mistakes and everyone makes errors,” Blaney said, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “I make them every single weekend and we all expect perfection out of the whole team but you know, people makes mistakes, and really what it was we thought there was more in the tank than there actually was. We dumped enough fuel in it the last stop judging off of what we thought was in it prior to that.

“So yeah a little mistake, a little math error but you just learn from those things and move on. Same thing as when you see a pit stop kind of get messed up if you see me make a mistake, same thing. Gosh it could happen to anybody. So, yeah we’ve done the best we could to figure out what happened and tried to take measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Ryan Blaney says the team thought they had more fuel in the car prior to his final stop, and that lead to the miscalculation of how much fuel they had after doing one can of fuel on the final pit stop. He said everyone (including himself) makes mistakes. pic.twitter.com/4fKPluFRfT

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 9, 2024

Ryan Blaney starting P3 at Sonoma

Ryan Blaney will start P3 in the Toyota/Save Mart 350. Blaney has a little bit of success at Sonoma. A few top-10 finishes and a personal best finish of P3 in 2019. His Penske teammate Joey Logano won the pole award.

As for last week’s winner, Austin Cindric, things weren’t so great. P28 on the day. Harrison Burton had a solid session and qualified P22 to round out the Penske and Penske-affiliated teams.

While the last month or two has been a rough patch for Blaney, it could turn around. Passing is going to be hard, so the good track position today will be beneficial. But only if he can maintain his position on pit stops and avoid mistakes on the track.

In the Xfinity Series race, it was clean for almost every lap. However, things got wild in the final stage as they tend to do from time to time. A little chaos is never a bad thing. With a newly paved track and a new wall at Turn 11, there are variables that could factor into the action.