NASCAR CUP SERIES: BUSCH CLASH AT DAYTONA

February 9, 2021

Ryan Blaney

Press Conference

Daytona International Speedway

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Ryan Blaney. We know that was a disappointing finish, so we appreciate you spending some time with us. We'll roll right into questions.

Q. Obviously not the way you wanted this one to end. All in all, do you feel like the move to the road course at least delivered for the fans in terms of the excitement and hype?

RYAN BLANEY: I guess it was an exciting finish. Bet it was fun to watch. Obviously it wasn't fun for me to be a part of it at the end there. We had kind of an up-and-down night. We had a fast car up front, then I blew by turn one on the restart. Kind of had to work our way back.

Yeah, it was definitely a different feel. I think it came down to an exciting finish for the fans to watch. It was just a shame it didn't turn out better for us.

Q. Chase just said he didn't mean to wreck you, he told you that. If you're in the same position and you're in second place, do you make that move?

RYAN BLANEY: I mean, obviously he didn't mean to wreck me. I mean, of course he didn't mean to do that. But I ended up wrecked. It's kind of just what it is.

I mean, of course, you never mean to wreck anybody usually. I know he didn't mean to. But drove off in there pretty deep. Personally, he wasn't going to make the corner. It was going to be very hard for him to do it. Just a shame that we ended up getting turned around.

Am I going to make the same move if we're in the same position two weeks from now? Hell, yeah. I mean, why not?

But I told him if you're going to make a move like that, make sure you at least win the race. Don't hand it to the third-place guy.

It's very ironic me would saying that because I won the Roval like that, being the third-place guy. To answer your question, yes, I would make the same move he did, maybe do it a little bit differently if I was in the same spot in a couple weeks.

Q. How much of the friendship part of it is in your head coming into that last turn? Are you going, Okay, he might try to get me here, but he's my friend, he's going to take care of me? Does that not come into play at all?

RYAN BLANEY: Well, I mean, it started off, I didn't do the best job on the white flag after I got by him. I didn't do a great job of getting away from him. I kind of missed turn one, kind of let him get to me in three there, then five as well. Just couldn't put a crazy, clean lap together. I hit the mud real bad. I thought I was in a good spot out of six, then I hit the dang mud on the bus stop at the back, let him get right to my bumper. That just set it up.

Listen, hey, we're really good friends off the racetrack. But we're both really hard competitors, we race each other really hard. I know he's going to make a big move. Any competitor would. If you don't go in there trying to win the race, what are you there for? Like I said, it's just a shame that it got us wrecked.

But, I mean, we're just as hard competitors as we are as good of friends. That's just the way it is. I race everybody the same.

Q. Does an apology mean anything at this point?

RYAN BLANEY: I mean, you can say -- I mean, yeah. It's better than not just saying anything, right? Chase and I are good enough friends to where we're going to talk about it. Obviously I'm not happy with him. No good friends would be happy with each other if one ended up getting wrecked by the other one.

Yeah, I mean, apology is nice. We'll still talk about it. I've always said that's a good thing about having friends that you race against, you can sit down and talk to it, not be a huge blowup argument. We're definitely not going to see eye-to-eye on it. We'll be able to sit down and talk to it, not just blow it off.

But, yeah, just one of those things, man. He and I wrecked together in Kentucky in 2016. That stuff's going to happen. It stinks when it's your buddy and it's for the win.

Q. You mentioned the last lap, from your point of view, a lot of things went wrong leading up to that last corner. You mentioned turn one. By missing that, did that mess everything up in three and elsewhere, threw the whole rhythm off, then when you had the issue in the bus stop, that much extra chance to catch you?

RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, just let him get there. I had a decent gap coming to the white. I got into one, kind of slipped. Kind of let him get close in three. I thought I was even good off of six, like I said. Then I hit that mud.

But I used my tires up so much. I was on a little bit fresher stuff, but I used them up hard to try to get there, get to second, get the lead. They were kind of biting me. I was asking too much of them the last lap.

Part of that is I wish I would have done a better job that whole last lap. If I had to do it again, I would protect in a different way going into the final chicane. Just maybe do something a little bit different. But those things you put in your memory bank of different things to do and try, try to get better at.

Q. What would you do so differently then? You drove a little bit deeper at that point. How would you have defended yourself better this time?

RYAN BLANEY: I can't tell you. Just block a different way. Just defend it a different spot on the track just so he couldn't have got to a certain point beside my car.

Q. You kind of answered it there, but on the last lap, do you do anything different moving forward now that you've seen how that one ended specifically or would you pretty much attack it the same way with any other competitor?

RYAN BLANEY: I would attack. Obviously there's things you can sit down and do differently. That whole last lap, I wish it was a little bit cleaner on my end, before the last corner.

Yeah, so there's things you look back on, you try to apply for next race. When you're in those positions, you hope you're in them again and you can apply those things to next time. That's all. Just stuff you put in your memory bank, try to apply it the next go around.

Q. How do you rate the performance from yourself and your team today?

RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was a really strong showing by our group, the Great Lakes Flooring Menards Ford Mustang I thought was really fast. We got lucky and started on the pole. I didn't really get up to speed the first couple laps. I was kind of on the splitter a little bit, let Denny get by me. I thought we were pretty even to Denny. He was pretty fast.

I'm not really sure what happened to him, but he was pretty quick. But I felt like we were pretty even with him. We made some changes to our car throughout the night. Honestly, on that early restart, it set us back, but honestly it cycled up pretty good for us. We were able to get a couple good restarts and get up through the field, and Todd Gordon made some good calls and decisions on pitting, things like that.

Really proud of the effort. I feel like our road course is getting better. I think we need to improve our late run speed. Our cars need to hang on a little bit better. Other than that, really proud of the whole group. We've made huge gains, like I said, on the road course program. We still got a little ways to go, but it was a nice step in the right direction to build notes for a couple weeks.

Q. You passed Chase about a lap to go. He had stayed out and was on older tires than I think everybody else. Were you a little surprised he was able to get back to you to be in the position of chasing you down on the last lap?

RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, there was a decent amount of us that had tires left, we came in. I think we just got a pretty good restart, were able to go. I mean, his car is really fast. He's won however many of the last road course races. Really something else.

Yeah, when I passed him there, we run him down not really quick, but just kind of inched toward him. We didn't have any laps to do it, only four laps to do it. He slipped a couple corners which let me get close, then make a move.

Yeah, it was definitely surprising he could stay right there because I was eating them up in braking zones, really hard on the drive off. He was driving in super deep, making it stick, driving off with me. I was pretty shocked. I wasn't thinking about that, I was just trying to do the best I could of not mess up or try to hit my line. I wish I would have did a better job of that.

Yeah, his car was really fast even when we had a handful of lap pressure tires. He stayed with us. I wish we could have obviously been five more car lengths ahead of him going into the final corner.

THE MODERATOR: Ryan, thank you so much for spending time with us. We wish you the best of luck tomorrow in the Daytona 500 qualifying.

RYAN BLANEY: Thank you.