Ryan Blaney after his 3rd place in Indy: “Strange circumstances … ruined our race”

INDIANAPOLIS – While Kyle Larson celebrated, Ryan Blaney was seething with anger.

“I’m mad,” Blaney said after finishing third in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday.

“I told my guys I’m mad, but I don’t know who to be mad at. Like there’s no one to be mad at. It’s just racing luck.”

He defeats Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick to take his first win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Blaney’s chances of winning faded when leader Brad Keselowski pitted as the field headed toward the green flag for the final overtime restart. Keselowski was running out of fuel.

Keselowski had taken the inside lane and Blaney, who was second at the time, chose the outside lane to restart. The inside lane is the preferred lane, but Blaney did not want to restart behind Keselowski because he was afraid Keselowski would run out of fuel and lock him up, allowing the car in the outside lane to pull away.

As Keselowski turned onto pit road, the cars on the inside lane all moved forward one row as the field approached the restart zone, putting eventual winner Kyle Larson on the inside of Blaney on the front row.

“The break that (Larson) had and the difficulties that I had at the time ruined our race,” Blaney said. “We put ourselves in the perfect position to win and this strange circumstance only helped him and ruined our race … that’s what upsets me. I’m not mad at anyone. It’s just luck, I’m just mad.”

“This sucks, man.”

On the restart, Larson and Blaney ran side by side into the first turn before Larson pulled away. Blaney radioed his team after the race that he just didn’t have enough grip on the outside to continue to challenge Larson. Tyler Reddick passed Blaney before the finish to take second.

Larson was aware of his luck as he stood on the brick plaza with NBC Sports’ Marty Snider after the win.

“The strategy that worked – Brad ran out of gas and I took over the front row – required a lot of things to come together,” said Larson. “Fortunately, it worked.”

When asked if NASCAR should not have restarted the race after Keselowski pitted and allowed drivers to vote again, Blaney said, “I don’t know. I can say very simply, if the leader goes out on the restart, wave the green light and vote again because you’re now promoting the third-place driver, so I’m cheated.”

“I’m the one who’s getting cheated, so the third-place guy benefits, the guy behind me benefits. It’s one of those weird situations that you don’t see very often, and in a place like this. In another place, it wouldn’t be so bad because you can kind of hold the second lane, all the other places. Here, it’s just a death sentence. You can’t hold the lead from up in the front row.

“Of course I think that in this situation they should rearrange the table setting so that it is fair. That is the only way it can be fair.”