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Late-race fuel economy issues prevent Brad Keselowski from winning at the Brickyard

Late-race fuel economy issues prevent Brad Keselowski from winning at the Brickyard

INDIANAPOLIS — Brad Keselowski started the Brickyard 400 in 26th place after a poor qualifying showing on Saturday, and the race itself didn’t get off to a much better start. Before the end of Stage 1, Keselowski was penalized for a pit exit violation on Lap 41. He was in 36th place out of 39 at the end of the first stage.

He and his RFK Racing team knew they had to use every trick they could to get the victory.

By the end of Stage 2, after 50 laps, Keselowski had moved up 15 spots to 21st, and quickly moved back up to first place over the final 60 laps. As the final 10 laps began, it was clear that Keselowski was out of fuel, but he and everyone watching knew that a last-minute pit stop would prevent him from winning, even though he later admitted that he had pushed the No. 6 Ford too hard.

“It’s a double-edged sword, stabbing you from both sides,” Keselowski’s crew chief Matt McCall told IndyStar.

The plan was for Keselowski to drive until he ran out of gas, which his team predicted would happen just after he crossed the finish line, but a crash on lap 159 (out of the planned 160th) sent the race into overtime and thwarted Keselowski’s plans to win his second Brickyard 400.

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After former Brickyard 400 winner Kyle Busch hit Denny Hamlin in Turn 3 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, Busch hit the wall and brought out the 10th caution of the day. Keselowski was leading at the time, but his Ford was running on fumes and he didn’t have enough fuel to make it through the next double-overtime period without making a pit stop.

Keselowski, McCall and the entire RFK Racing team knew their chances of victory were gone when the No. 6 Ford pulled into the pits for its final stop on lap 160 of the Brickyard 400.

“Maybe we could have fought, maybe we couldn’t have fought, I’d like to see,” Keselowski said afterward. “We have top-10 speed, we’re not dominant, but we’re really competitive. … We didn’t get a yellow flag today when we needed a yellow to win.

“At some point this will come back to us and people will say we were really lucky and forget about days like today.”

Instead of taking home his second Brickyard 400 victory, which would have made him the seventh person to win multiple times, Keselowski finished 21st and controversially held off Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney to earn his first victory. The event took 167 laps to complete, the first time it’s happened on IMS’ oval track since 2020.

Keselowski, who has fond memories of the track after his victory in 2018 and was happy to have led 35 laps on Sunday, does not want to forget July 21, 2024.

“It’s a good track for me, I like racing here,” he told IndyStar.

Keselowski will have to wait until next July to race again on his preferred oval track.

You may direct your comments to Kyle Smedley at [email protected] or X @KyleSmedley_.