Ryan Blaney won the FireKeepers Casino 400 from Michigan International Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
Blaney chose the bottom lane ahead of the final restart, and a big push from Kyle Busch got him ahead of William Byron coming out of Turn 2. Blaney was able to hold off the hard-charging Hendrick Motorsports duo of Byron and Kyle Larson to pick up his second victory of the season.
Blaney started toward the front of the field on Sunday, but fell back at the drop of the green flag after he struggled with his car’s handling.
Blaney said his team worked on the car all day to get it ready for the finish.
“We weren’t great to start the day off,” Blaney said. “Kept working and working and got a lot better.”
Blaney said the race came down to the final restart where a push from Busch got him to the lead.
“Picked a good lane on the restart there and was able to get the push we needed,” Blaney said. “Michigan’s a matter of…holding it wide open and pretty much playing the air game. We got a great push by the 18 [of Busch] on the restart and was able to get clear.”
Byron finished second on Sunday after he couldn’t overcome NASCAR’s 550 horsepower package that keeps racing close but sometimes makes it difficult to pass.
Byron said he was a victim of the superspeedway-like racing that left him without a true partner on the restart.
“Needed [Denny Hamlin] to stay with us,” Byron said. “I gave up the lead trying to protect the top and just didn’t have the loyalty there to kind of push me into the lead.”
“It was kind of like a speedway race. I was trying to back up to [Larson] off of four to get a run with about two laps to go. Unfortunately, he ran the bottom so he didn’t have any momentum to push me.”
Unofficial results:
- Ryan Blaney
- William Byron
- Kyle Larson
- Kurt Busch
- Denny Hamlin
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Kyle Busch
- Chase Elliott
- Brad Keselowski
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Chase Briscoe
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Christopher Bell
- Kevin Harvick
- Chris Buescher
- Alex Bowman
- Aric Almirola
- Erik Jones
- Bubba Wallace
- Michael McDowell
- Ryan Preece
- Daniel Suarez
- Cole Custer
- Ryan Newman
- Justin Haley
- Josh Berry
- Cody Ware
- BJ McLeod
- Tyler Reddick
- Quin Houff
- Josh Bilicki
- Garrett Smithley
- Joey Logano
- Anthony Alfredo
- Ross Chastain
- Austin Dillon
- Joey Gase
