Winners, losers from New Hampshire Cup playoff race won by Ryan Blaney

LOUDON, N.H. — A look at the winners and losers from Sunday’s Cup playoff race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway:

WINNERS

Ryan Blaney — He scored his third win of the season Sunday at New Hampshire. This marks the third consecutive season — and fourth time in five years — that Blaney has won three races in a season. Sunday’s win sends Blaney into the third round of the playoffs, moving him a step closer to a third consecutive Championship 4 appearance. “The dream deal is winning the first race of the round,” Blaney said, noting how it gives a team the most time to prepare for the next round.

Team Penske — Joey Logano was the fastest car among Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain at a July tire test at New Hampshire and carried that into Sunday’s race. Winner Ryan Blaney and Logano, who finished fourth, combined to lead 263 of the 301 laps. Josh Berry, whose Wood Brothers Racing team is closely aligned with Team Penske, finished second and led 10 laps. It was a dominant performance for this organization, which has won the past three Cup championships in Phoenix.

William Byron — He scored his first top-10 finish in eight starts at New Hampshire, placing third in Sunday’s race. “I felt like a lot of things that we’ve just kind of been building on for the short-tracks were working for us,” Byron said after the race. “I feel like New Hampshire Motor Speedway has been tricky for me in the Cup car. I felt like I was good in the other series, but this place in the Cup car has been tough on us. We’re just trying to build little bits here and there, and I just felt like we could really stack runs together.” Byron’s performance puts him second in the points. The regular season champion is 47 points above the cutline with Kansas and the Charlotte Roval left in this round.

Chase Elliott — He came back from qualifying 27th to finish fifth. Elliott, who only had four stage points in the first round of the playoffs, scored four stage points in Sunday’s race. “Just hate we had to not pit for track position because you want to be up there in the mix,” Elliott said. “But the way it all worked out, we got some stage points there in stage 2 and got a good result with a top-five finish.” He’s 14 points above the cutline. “There’s no such thing as being safe in this deal,” Elliott said. “We’ll just lay it out there again next weekend and hope for the best.”

Spire Motorsports — Michael McDowell finished eighth. That marks the fourth time in the last five races Spire Motorsports has had a car finish in the top 10. It was nearly two cars in the top 10. Carson Hocevar finished 11th. Hocevar did score the bonus point for the fastest lap of the race.

LOSERS

Chase Briscoe — New Hampshire had been a strong track for the No. 19 with Martin Truex Jr., but that success did not carry over to Briscoe. He qualified 18th and finished 10th. The result is that he holds the final transfer spot with two races left in this round. “It was not a great day for us,” Briscoe said. “On the race track, we never really had any issues, but on pit road we kept losing positions. Just hard to do that in the playoffs and not sacrifice a finish because of it. I thought our car was okay. We definitely didn’t have anything for the Penske cars.”

Ty Gibbs — He was racing Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for 11th place a third of the way into the race when Gibbs crashed after contact from Hamlin. Gibbs, who finished 35th, diverted the focus to next weekend’s race when asked about the incident. Hamlin said the contact was a “mistake” but suggested that Gibbs needs to learn how to race his teammates who are racing for a championship when he isn’t. Car owner Joe Gibbs said the drivers would meet to “figure it out.”

Denny Hamlin raised questions about how Ty Gibbs drove him after their incident in Sunday’s New Hampshire playoff race.

Bubba Wallace — He finished 26th and went from holding the final transfer spot to being last among the playoff drivers. He’s 27points from the cutline with two races left in the round. “Just a miss all around really,” Wallace said. “We couldn’t really seem to get things going. Our best run lasted for five laps, the caution came out and then it was just right back to no good.”