Ryan Blaney was not a fan of how the Toyota drivers raced in the Daytona 500 on Sunday. They employed aggressive fuel-saving tactics, but that was not his main issue. Instead, Blaney took exception to the way they ran three-wide and effectively blocked the entire field while slowing the pace to save fuel.
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Blaney’s call for action drew responses from within the Toyota camp, including 23XI Racing owner Denny Hamlin. Tyler Reddick’s crew chief, Billy Scott, also weighed in after a successful day for the team. With Reddick capturing the Harley J. Earl Trophy and opening the season on a high note, Scott made it clear he saw nothing wrong with the Toyota drivers’ approach.
Ryan Blaney was not pleased that Toyota had all three lanes locked up and were running ultra-slow 52 second laps in the final stage. Says, “We need to fix that. It’s pretty bad,” in regard to the fuel saving racing in the #Daytona500 pic.twitter.com/LfTJ17eZ5D
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) February 15, 2026
Scott explained his stance, “I doubt there’s a fix to it because we’re just going to figure out the next way to exploit it, and I don’t know that it needs to be fixed. I think we all, as competitors, are spending as much time trying to figure out what the next best thing is and how to combat what the other is doing. I mean, I think it would be like asking if you need to change how chess is played.”
Daytona 500 winning crew chief Billy Scott when asked if there’s a way to fix mass fuel saving on superspeedways: “I doubt there’s a fix to it, because we’re just gonna figure out the next way to exploit it. … It’d be like asking you to change how chess is played.”
Denny… pic.twitter.com/Kd43EnAavH
— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) February 16, 2026
Scott believes that such tactics are what make the sport interesting to watch and be a part of. Blaney is certainly not going to agree with that. Hamlin, the senior-most Toyota driver on the field, expressed his thoughts on the matter as well. Unlike Scott, he recognized fuel-saving methods as an issue and delved into what the solution for them could be.
Hamlin’s solution to fix superspeedway racing
In light of the situation, Hamlin, once again, explained that increasing the speed of the car is the only fix. He strongly believes that doing so will spread the field and resolve what Blaney and the others are worried about. He further went a step ahead and proposed an experiment that NASCAR ought to try soon.
“One of the suggestions that we talked about just a few days ago is to come here next year in the Clash,” he said. “Let a few of us come up with a package that we think you won’t see any fuel saving, you’re just going to see people hanging on. That would be the only fix.” Increasing the speed limits of the engines means the sport will become more like it was in the past.
The fans will love that for sure. But NASCAR’s safety department and insurance companies will dread the outcome.
