Team Penske’s No. 12 driver Ryan Blaney urged NASCAR to start penalizing drivers who lay back during the restarts.
Blaney was not happy with the way the Cup restarts went through during the Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway. While some drivers got the better of the situation, Blaney was not one of them. In fact, he said that it was the worst restart of his career and called it super odd.
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In light of the situation, he referred to how other series deal with the situation for such future instances. Blaney said:
“So, I feel like in other series, their cars, short tracks, they’ll throw a yellow if they think the leader went early, if the restart was jumbled, if someone is laying back. If you’re not gonna give penalties, do you just reset and do another restart? Do you give that guy a warning or you just penalize him right away, there are certain series that do it in different ways.”
Not only that, he even suggested that NASCAR start penalizing such acts so that the drivers will stop laying back during restarts.
“I feel like they just have to really stay on the restarts and start penalizing people if they’re doing that stuff. NASCAR reminds us all the time, but we saw it be pretty ridiculous at Kansas, and nothing has been done about it, so until you start slapping wrists, everybody is gonna keep doing it.”
Blaney is not the first driver to complain about the situation. Earlier this week, Hamlin called the situation a problem for the series and compared it to ARCA restarts. He also wanted NASCAR to act on the situation.
Blaney heads to the last race of the first round of the Cup playoffs in 6th position, 25 points above the 13th-placed driver. Nonetheless, he will need to stay focused and have a good race to qualify for the next round.
“That’s bulls***” – Denny Hamlin doesn’t hold back in criticizing the current Cup restarts
And yet Denny laid back