‘I struggled a little bit,’ Ryan Blaney on his ‘frustrating’ finish at Richmond after starting the race at the pole


‘I struggled a little bit,’ Ryan Blaney on his ‘frustrating’ finish at Richmond after starting the race at the pole

Ryan Blaney

Following Saturdays Xfinity Series race, which saw only a couple of lead changes, it was assumed that the pole sitter in Richmond will have a huge advantage going into Sunday’s Cup series race. Team Penske Racing driver Ryan Blaney was all set to use that advantage and convert it to his first win in the 2022 season.

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Ryan Blaney started the race with flying colors as he lead the whole 70 laps of stage one sweeping the initial stage as well as stage points ahead of William Byron and Kyle Busch. He started the second stage well and was fighting Christopher Bell for the lead throughout but a few pit stops under the green flag changed the whole scenario as both of them lost the lead.

Following that came a short ontrack battle between Ryan Blaney and Trackhouse racing driver and COTA race winner Ross Chastain as both the drivers got at each other bumping each other to gain an edge. Stage 2 ended with Ryan Blaney moving down the order to P5 as Martin Truex Jr. secured the P1.

In the third and final stage, Ryan Blaney since the beginning was out of a top 3 finish if not for an incident like Martin Truex Jr. and Willian Byron found themselves in a healthy lead and he a later stage surge from Kevin Harvick and race winner Denny Hamlin saw  Ryan Blaney finishing P7 at the checkered flag.

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Find out what Ryan Blaney said on his yet another average Richmond outing

Ryan Blaney
Ryan Blaney

Ryan Blaney acknowledged that he wasn’t good enough to overcome the heavy traffic he had to face yet and he struggled to get back to good momentum after losing the track position. He added that it is good to have a stage win and his best finish so far in Richmond at seventh. Ryan Blaney suggests that it was just an okay run in Richmond as he is frustrated with the finish and little lack of speed.

It’s tough. There were a handful of cars that could kind of run up and run in traffic pretty well and we just weren’t really good enough to run in traffic. Once we lost track position I struggled a little bit, but it’s nice to win a stage. It’s cool to get the pole and good stage points. We finished seventh, my best finish here,” Ryan Blaney said.

Overall, a fun day. It was kind of frustrating because we were running so well early. I wanted to run better, but I can’t complain about it too much. Overall, not a bad day. We just have to find a little bit more speed, but it was nice that we kind of put together some decent notes and have an OK run at Richmond,” Ryan Blaney added.

Also read: ‘The lapped cars kind of got in the way,’ Kevin Harvick after missing out on a win at Richmond in the ‘first clean day’ of racing in 2022

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