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Heading into the Enjoy Illinois 300, Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney praised NASCAR's consistency in suspending Chase Elliott. While Blaney was ahead leading the field in the Coca-Cola 600, Elliott intentionally hooked Denny Hamlin, wrecking both the cars and earning a one-race suspension.
Elliott's move in last weekend's race was similar to Bubba Wallace's contact with Kyle Larson in the fall race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year. Wallace earned a one-race suspension for his dangerous move on the #5 Chevrolet driver.
The Coke 600 winner lauded NASCAR's decision to ban its most popular driver. He said in a press conference at the World Wide Technology Raceway:
"In their position, what happened to Bubba [Wallace] last year, very similar to what happened on Monday night. Feel like if you are gonna make a call on one guy for doing some move, you have to be consistent in what you call on another guy. That's just kind of what it is."
He added:
"It's good that they were kinda consistent in the calls for the exact same kind of retaliation. I think that's how it should be. Right? That's kind of the most dangerous move I think you can do to somebody, is the hook deal. It's good NASCAR was consistent. I have thought about it too much, but you gotta make the same call for the same move for everybody."
NASCAR handed the penalty to Chase Elliott after scouring through the data to finally conclude that the move was intentional.
Following the penalty, Hendrick Motorsports made an appeal to NASCAR to grant a playoff waiver for Elliott. On Thursday, the governing body granted the appeal. Hence, the race suspension won't be affecting the #9 driver's chances of reaching the playoffs.
Ryan Blaney reckons data doesn't tell the whole story
NASCAR's vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, recently revealed that before penalizing Chase Elliott, they had to go through a lot of data. However, Ryan Blaney believes that the decisions must not 'heavily rely on data'.
"Data is one thing, the other thing is things happen so quick and it's in the spur of the moment. It's super hard to go off of just data. There are other things. Things happen real fast and you don't know the emotions of somebody and you don't know if something... is broken or if it's a genuine mistake. I don't think you can heavily rely on data."
Citing Hamlin's example, Blaney added that drivers will use data to highlight others' mistakes. He concluded:
"The data side is out there for the whole world to see and it's a good tool to use if you want to get somebody in trouble. It's almost like a tattletale to the principal to be honest, but everyone goes about it their own way."
