When Austin Cindric won the second stage and Ryan Blaney was not far behind, it felt like Team Penske had the advantage going into the final stretch of the race. By the end of the race, all three Penske drivers suffered DNFs and two of them are now behind the round of 8 cutline.
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Blaney wrecked after a push from Alex Bowman sent him into the well. Cindric and Joey Logano were caught up in the big one that unfurled towards the end of the race.
The day wasn’t going bad for the Penske drivers until that moment. They seemed to be working well together but uncontrollable circumstances were their undoing.
Blaney is still ahead of the round of 8 cutline with a decent margin but there is work to do for Logano and Cindric at the Roval race. From a point in the race where it seemed like all three Penske cars would at least finish inside the top 10, the result was incredibly disappointing.
“Instead of Penske having three guys in great positions or good positions to move on to the round of 8, now they only have Blaney in a good spot whereas Logano and Cindric now are on the other side of the cutline. Cindric is 29 back, I feel like that’s a must-win 13, at least that’s manageable,” Jordan Bianchi said in a recent episode of The Teardown.
It will be interesting to see how the Penske cars run at the Roval. Working together at road course races is quite challenging so that might be an issue.
Blaney expresses frustration post Talladega DNF
While Logano and Cindric were caught in the big one late in the race, Blaney’s day had ended a little earlier. The reigning Cup Series champion was working well with the #2 car at the time.
Despite falling from P5 at the start to P10, he made his way back to the front of the pack. But a flawed shove by the #48 of Alex Bowman, right before the end of stage 2 saw him crash into the barriers. He might have gotten the points but that was it for the day.
“I thought Austin and I worked well together. I had a feeling that the #8 would pull out and help Chevy. He wasn’t gonna help me, obviously, so we got in the middle. I didn’t think it was terrible.”
“We were probably still gonna run fifth or sixth, and then the #48 just drove straight through me in the tri-oval. He just wrecked the f*ck out of me. I don’t know what he’s thinking,” he had said after the race.
Thankfully, the reigning Cup Series champion has a cushion of 25 points inside the round of 8 bubble. He just has to keep his calm in the Roval race next weekend and should be comfortably through to the next round, barring another wreck that takes him out of the race again.
