NASCAR insiders debate if 'team orders' should have been given during New Hampshire playoff race

Two NASCAR insiders weighed in on whether “team orders” should have been given during the NASCAR race at New Hampshire on Sunday. On The Teardown podcast, Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic debated whether “team orders” should have been called when Ryan Blaney was battling Josh Berry for the win.

“The Berry-Blaney thing, I hate team orders,” Bianchi said while adding that there were no team orders given during the race. “If you’re watching this, and you’re the 12 team (Blaney), aren’t you sitting there in the back of your mind going, ‘Guys, can we just back off here?’ There’s a case to be made of why team orders, in this case, would have been a good thing.”

Gluck explained why there wasn’t a need for team orders on Sunday. “I don’t know that the first race of a round would be as big of a thing,” he said. “You’re probably looking at it like, ‘Hey, obviously, we want to win this race. But if we get past here, we’re still going to finish second, and we’re still going to be in a great playoff position. Nobody else is going to lock themselves in if this guy wins.'”

Ryan Blaney reacts to winning NASCAR New Hampshire race

Ryan Blaney drives for Team Penske, and Josh Berry drives for Wood Brothers Racing. The two teams have a technical alliance, so Blaney and Berry are teammates.

Blaney won the New Hampshire race and clinched a spot in the Round of Eight of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. After the race, Blaney gave credit to Penske and Wood Brothers for the victory.

“Massive props to all of Team Penske, Wood Brothers,” Blaney said. “We did a great job leading up to this race and preparing, through the weekend, practice, qualifying in the race. Our cars are really fast. As a whole, like as a whole company. That’s something they should really be proud of.

I’m just in the fortunate situation I get to drive a fast race car. Yeah, it speaks volumes of the hard work that they’ve done, and I think for us to run first, Josh to run second, was Joey third or fourth? Top five, stage win, that’s a great day. Huge props to them. Couldn’t be prouder of them. It was nice we were able to capitalize on having such fast cars.”