Ryan Preece defended his 'game-time decision' to abandon his teammate Chris Buscher at Daytona International Speedway. He explained that he didn't want to 'get stuck' behind the lead car and that it was 'highly unlikely' that he and Buscher would've cleared the frontrunners together.With six laps left in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, Preece was running behind the No.7 of Justin Haley, with Buescher following his draft at sixth. Haley briefly cleared for the lead, and Preece immediately followed suit, pulling to the outside lane to challenge him.Buescher, meanwhile, was left to fend for himself as Preece took over the lead after 33 laps in the top five. The move drew criticism as many felt Preece left his teammate hanging.Preece addressed the criticisms on the latest episode of the RFK Racing podcast, Backstretch Banter."People can Monday quarterback that all day long, right. 'Hey, Why would you get rid of your teammate or why would you move away from them?' But sitting in the position that Chris and I were in, it was highly unlikely we would have ever got clear, both him and I, of the guys on the outside in that moment as well," he said (via X/ Steven Taranto, 1:30 onwards)."I didn't want to get stuck behind the seven and not have an opportunity to win. So that was the game time decision of we need to put ourselves on the front row to take control and have an opportunity to win," he added.Ryan Preece was poised to win the race when Kyle Larson made the same move by bailing on his draft. Larson pulled to the outside and created a third lane, leaving Preece unable to fight back in the middle as multiple cars surged past him.Ryan Preece calls out Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott for aiding their HMS teammateRyan Preece didn't mince words when he addressed Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott's late-race move to form a separate lane at Daytona. He believes the move was done to protect their Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman, who was on the verge of elimination had Preece won it all."The problem is the 9 (Chase Elliott) and the 5 (Kyle Larson) were worried about their teammate that would have been bumped out. So shi**y situation, thought we were going to win that one because we did everything right today and just didn't work out," Preece said in a post-race interview with Frontstretch.Ryan Preece mentioned he needed 'more friends' behind him to help similarly. Nonetheless, he cleared the HMS drivers of wrongdoing, seeing how it was 'the right thing for them'.Alex Bowman was 60 points above the cutline, but would've been eliminated if a new winner emerged at Daytona. Adding to his troubles, Bowman became collateral in a 12-car crash early in the race. Ryan Blaney was by far the biggest benefactor of Larson and Elliott's move, as he joined the third lane and surged to the lead from 13th on the grid, thereby preventing a knockout for Bowman.