Ryan Preece Points to Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott As Reason Behind Daytona Miss

It will be a lonely NASCAR playoff for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing as all three of its drivers — team co-owner Brad Keselowski, along with Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece — all failed to make the 10-race postseason.

In addition to the 14 drivers who claimed at least one win this season, two other drivers qualified for the 16-driver playoffs on points alone: 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick and Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman.

Preece, who finished 14th Saturday night at Daytona, was upset that he fell short. He was challenging for the lead late in the race when he got shuffled back.

“Man, I thought we were going to win that race,” Preece said. “You want to talk about having the best scenario play out for how we wanted it to. I was just leading the #7 (Justin Haley) there, the #17 (Chris Buescher) was doing a great job, just letting them stay there. There was nothing you could do.

“The problem is that the #9 (Chase Elliott) and #5 (Kyle Larson) were worried about their teammate that would have been bumped out (Bowman). So, sh***y situation. Thought we were going to win that one. We did everything right today and it just didn’t work out.”

Larson, who finished sixth, downplayed Preece’s comments, saying, “I was just stressful. I know I can control my destiny and I’m trying to win to help Alex. Yeah, I was really, really trying hard to do all I could to win there.”

For Preece, the finish was very similar to how the race at Talladega played out earlier this year before his disqualification there. Preece was side-by-side for the lead with five laps left and still had a chance with two laps left but came up short.

“I wouldn’t have done anything different. I knew when we got to where we did, I felt like it was going to be the same thing as Talladega…” Preece said. “It just seems to be another week where we didn’t win, but wasn’t for a lack of trying.”

Preece might have had enough points to qualify in any case, had he not been disqualified and lost all the resulting points when his runner-up run earlier this year at Talladega was tossed due to what NASCAR called “illegal modifications to the rear spoiler.”