“It’s on you buddy” - Dale Earnhardt Jr. points to Team Penske driver as culprit for chaotic end at Nashville

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently shared his thoughts about the driver who kick-started the multiple overtimes at Nashville that resulted in a chaotic end to the race. That driver in Junior's eyes was Austin Cindric of Team Penske.

Speaking on the Dale Jr. Download, the NASCAR Hall of Famer addressed the subject of the five overtime restarts. He mentioned that it has gathered "a ton of conversation" on social media as he spoke about Cindric's role in the same.

"If there's anything that you didn't like about the end of the race, you should blame Austin Cindric. Because Austin Cindric is running a 400 mile race and spun out on the backstraightaway with two laps to go. That's like the UPS guy or Amazon or FedEx, you buy something, it ships all the way across the country, the guy throws it on the front porch and breaks it. It's like, 'Made it all the way to the front porch and got busted. What the hell? What in the hell?' So Austin Cindric, it's on you buddy," Junior said.

He claimed that everything that happened towards the end of the Nashville Cup race was "entirely unnecessary." And only if Cindric would've gotten through Turn 2 without spinning, it could've been avoided.

In fact, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was confused with Cindric spinning at the part of the racetrack he did and in the way he did.

"He goes way down the track and spins out to the right, I mean, how do you do that? I wanna know how do you do that? None of this happens if Austin can get off turn 2 like he did for 398 miles," he added.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had claimed Austin Cindric was on the hot seat heading into the 2024 season

During an episode of the Dale Jr. Download in November last year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke about the thin line Austin Cindric would walk on in the 2024 season. Junior claimed that driving the "iconic" #2 car and for Roger Penske, is "a big deal."

In his first two-full time seasons at NASCAR's highest level, Cindric only registered one win to his name, the 2022 Daytona 500. Other than that, he only had five finishes inside the top 5 over 72 starts between 2022 and 2023.

"That’s a big opportunity. I don’t see myself getting too many other opportunities like that in my racing career. So far it’s been nothing great outside of that Daytona 500 win. Is there a memorable finish? No, right? So, I think eventually, you got to say, ‘Look man, this guy’s on the hot seat,'" Junior said. [5:20]

Earnhardt said that heading into the 2024 season, Austin Cindric would already be feeling the pressure.

However, the #2 driver won the Cup race at Gateway after his teammate Ryan Blaney ran out of fuel and booked his place in the playoffs. In doing so, Cindric potentially ended the conversation of him being on the hot seat.