Ryan Blaney Blasts Claims that He Is the Favorite to Win R-8 Finale at Martinsville

Team Penske Racing star driver Ryan Blaney has shared his thoughts on his chances of making it into Championship-4 by winning at Martinsville.

Ryan Blaney Blasts Claims that He Is the Favorite to Win R-8 Finale at Martinsville

Ryan Blaney (Via IMAGO)

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Team Penske racing has yet again found themselves in a tough situation in the playoff’s situation, as both of their championship contenders Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are in a must win situation going into R-8 finale at Martinsville. The latter seems to be the favorite to win the race, as he is the defending race winner in the event.

In his Cup career, the No:12 Ford Mustang driver has raced in 19 events at the venue and has won two races. He finished inside the top-5 ten times and six of those finishes were inside the top-3. In the last ten races his performance was on another level, as his worst finish has P11, which he has scored thrice. He scored the two wins and six top-5 finishes since 2020.   

Going into the Martinsville race, Ryan Blaney is 47 away from the cutoff line and is in a must win situation. After the race, when asked about his chances of winning at Martinsville, Blaney pointed out that his past isn’t going benefit him much, as he and his team would have to go deep down to continue performing on a high level.

So what? We’ve won there twice. Up and down. You never know what’s going to happen year to year. You have people who have been saying, Oh, Blaney’s going to win Martinsville. That’s (expletive). It’s hard. I don’t know what speed we’re going to have. It’s nice we’ve won there a couple of times, but we’re going to have to dig down deep for this one, for sure.

Ryan Blaney said via Kelly Crandall of RACER.

Ryan Blaney was in disbelief over Talladega after having the control of the race

After the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega, the 2023 Cup Series champion was pretty disappointed and frustrated. The No:12 team was leading the race, with Joey Logano and multiple Ford cars behind him pushing. But the fuel saving strategy from the non-Penske teams cost them the control race and Blaney was in disbelief when it happened.

Ryan Blaney (via Imago)
Ryan Blaney (via Imago)

I can’t believe it. I mean, we had the control of this f***ing race and somehow gave it away. I don’t understand how that’s possible.

Ryan Blaney said.

Talking about the same on in a separate conversation, the Penske driver pointed out that till things went wrong for them he had control of the lace. If he got enough push from the Chevy teammates at the end, his lane would have secured solid finishes.

Yeah, I thought we did a good job. Got control of the race after the last pit stop and just faded. Had some guys saving or something, I don’t know, and wouldn’t push. And was pretty surprising that some guys weren’t pushing.

Ryan Blaney added.

Furthermore, he admitted that he and his teammate Joey Logano, the reigning champion, did everything right to put them in a string position. But luck and support weren’t on their side when they needed it the most.

Figured that we’d have a little more help than that from some people. But yeah, I thought we did a great job getting ourselves into the position we needed, me and Joey. Then it just fell apart and finished terrible.

Ryan Blaney asserted.

The Ford driver is right about the lack of support costing Penske drivers. Chase Briscoe won the race because of the solid push he got from his teammate Ty Gibbs. It would be interesting to see how the result is going to change the dynamic within the Ford partners and how costly it is going to if the team fails to win at Martinsville.

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