Ryan Preece ‘wanted to win’ before Talladega DQ destroyed his weekend

Ryan Preece was disqualified from Sunday’s Cup Series event at Talladega Superspeedway. The officials found an additional shim besides the two mandatory ones on his car’s spoiler.

Before getting disqualified, Preece bagged a runner-up finish, merely 0.022 seconds behind Austin Cindric, driver of the No. 2 Ford Mustang for Team Penske. Notably, it was Preece’s second top-five finish of the season, but all he was left with after the DQ was a P38 finish and one stage point.

Following his stellar performance, the RFK Racing newcomer said in a statement:

“I'm happy, but as a racer, you want to win, right? Coming to the tri-oval, I'm like, alright, we're all sticking together, and nobody was really leaving me. Wish I didn't have to shade up so much and maybe side-draft Austin to pull him back.”

Thanks to Cindric’s win, Team Penske has a driver locked in the playoffs. With that, the 26-year-old driver became the 33rd driver in the NASCAR Cup Series to win races at both Daytona and Talladega.

“Going to work with these guys is that fun for me,” said Cindric during a post-race interview. “I wouldn't trade a single one of them for anything. And that win was a total team effort.”

Cindric now has the chance to log a back-to-back sweep, joining fellow racers Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Kyle Larson as the only fourth speedster to pull off the feat.

Ryan Preece lauds his team following nail-biting finish at Talladega

Ryan Preece was happy with his team’s performance at the 2.66-mile tri-oval superspeedway. They executed Stage 3 exactly as they needed to, methodically squeezing through traffic and ultimately seizing the top lane.

After that, it all came down to how fast Preece could take his car to the finish line. He qualified seventh on Saturday, so it was evident that his crew did a splendid job putting together a Mustang that fast.

“We came out in the front of our group and worked our way through that traffic. We had the opportunity to get to the top lane and then from there it was just managing those cars behind us and not giving up what we gained. I’m really proud of everybody at RFK for this race car," Ryan Preece said, via Motorsport.com.

Ryan Preece sits 18th in the driver standings with 202 points under his belt. As of now, he owns one top-five and three top-10s with an average finish of 20.1. Next up for the drivers is the Würth 400 (presented by LIQUI MOLY) at Texas Motor Speedway.

The 267-lap, point-paying race will be televised live on Fox Sports 1, 3:30 pm ET onwards. Fans can also listen to exclusive radio updates on PRN (Performance Racing Network) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.