Kyle Larson breaks down Ryan Blaney incident at Gateway, assigns blame

A little bit of tension between Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney today at Gateway during the second race of the NASCAR Playoffs. The one-mile track has set up the field for the elimination race next week at Bristol.

Kyle Larson sent his car deep into Turn 3 as Stage 2 was coming to an end. Ryan Blaney had just gotten ahead of him after a lot of great side-by-side racing. Larson went too deep, washed up the track, and he got the left rear of Blaney’s car.

Thankfully, the 12 car wasn’t wrecked out of the race. Still, Blaney was not happy about the incident. The two drivers spoke on pit road after the finish. Then, they spoke to TV about it.

“Just told him I messed up. I wasn’t meaning to obviously go in there and hit him,” Larson said after the conversation. “I was just, the lap before I had got in there and got inside of him, you know, slid up, got to his door, got him tight, and got to where I could race him down the front stretch. And was just trying to do that again, and was a little further back into 3 than I was the lap before.

“Just misjudged the point of where I wasn’t going to get next to him and try to tuck in, and I just clipped him. So, yeah, all on me, but wasn’t intentional at all. So, I hope he understands that. I hurt his day where he could have gained more points. All in all, outside of that, it was a great race for us.”

Kyle Larson can say it was a mistake all he wants. Ryan Blaney isn’t forgetting this one any time soon.

Ryan Blaney will remember Kyle Larson spin at Gateway

Moving forward in the NASCAR Playoffs, Kyle Larson has to be careful around Ryan Blaney. The Team Penske driver didn’t say he wanted to wreck Larson. But it might not be as easy to race around and pass Blaney, depending on the situation moving forward.

This point in the season is when you want to try to cash in on all of the goodwill you earn throughout the year. Larson doesn’t have that with Blaney now.

“Um, I just wanted to know what I did to deserve it. He just said he made a mistake, and you know, yeah that’s fine, make mistakes, but at the end of the day, I still got turned,” Blaney said on USA. “He came from all the way on the bottom of the racetrack and hit me in the left rear. I know he most likely didn’t mean to do it, but it happened anyway. So, that’s just one I gotta remember, but I was happy we bounced back. After getting turned around and did a good job of kinda timing out where we needed to be and having a good enough car to get back to fourth.”

Kyle Larson had a great day on the track. He led laps, scored points, and goes into Bristol basically locked into the Round of 12. Can Larson win Bristol for the third time in a row?