When Christopher Bell fell back from the front of the pack with a mechanical issue, Ryan Blaney must have thought that it would be a cruise to the finish line. However, fate had something else in store as the #12 ran out of fuel and teammate Austin Cindric eventually went past to claim his second career Cup Series race win. While he was happy for his teammate, the defending Cup Series champion was distraught.
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“They were great, they did a good job. Happy for that team. I mean obviously bummed for us. The nut shots keep coming here this past month but hopefully… Straighten itself out, just proud of the effort, have to figure out what happened there. We thought we had more fuel than we did, it’s not like we left it short on purpose…so we have to figure it out, dig into that,” he said after the race.
Ryan Blaney said they didn't know they were close to being short on fuel where he would have needed to save gas. He's bummed obviously after another punch in the gut this year. pic.twitter.com/H6BqKPLUw5
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 2, 2024
Blaney surely saw this as a golden opportunity to secure a playoff berth in a season where there hasn’t been much to be positive about. Unfortunately, that was just not meant to be. It will be interesting to see how the Team Penske driver bounces back from this setback in the upcoming weeks.
For Cindric, on the other hand, this was a big deal. He was disappointed about what happened with his teammate but nothing is as sweet as winning a Cup Series race.
Jubilant Austin Cindric takes advantage of Ryan Blaney’s mishap
After he got out of his car, the driver of the #2 car first offered his commiserations to his teammate. Blaney truly is a leader in the Team Penske setup, and seeing him lose out by such fine margins surely would have been a heart-wrenching experience. But one man’s loss is another’s gain and Cindric took full advantage of the opportunity.
“I’m heartbroken for the #12 team, I don’t know what happened to them at the end of the race but they deserved to win this race so Ryan’s been one hell of a leader on this team. This weekend was a great weekend for everybody involved but yeah to have two cars in the fight, an eventual 1-2 there. Heartbroken for those guys but this is huge for me,” he said.
It has been a long time since Cindric won a race and the celebrations probably went on late into the night with his loved ones after the event.
