AVONDALE, Ariz. — Ryan Blaney was one spot short of collecting back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series championships Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
The driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford was forced to settle for second behind teammate Joey Logano by a mere 0.33 seconds.
Blaney, a three-time winner in 2024, mustered a masterful drive over the final 55-lap run to the checkers. After restarting sixth, Blaney quickly charged to fourth, eventually working through Hendrick Motorsports Kyle Larson for third and William Byron for second.
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Blaney cleared Byron for the runner-up position with 22 laps remaining and sat 2.1 seconds behind Logano with the final handfuls of laps ahead. The 30-year-old rapidly erased that deficit and stormed to the back bumper of Logano‘s No. 22 Ford, but Blaney ultimately had nothing left to throw at Logano.
Blaney was visibly exhausted upon exiting his Ford, crouching just to collect his breath after pouring his soul into chasing his second consecutive Cup title.
“I had to work my ass off to get by the 5, and I had to work my ass off to get to the 24 and pass him,” Blaney said. “And I worked my tail off to run Joey down from a long ways back. So as I’m doing it, I’m thinking to myself, like, I think I’m gonna get there (to Logano), get close, but I don’t know if I might have anything to pass him. But I can’t save because I’m never gonna get there if I save.”
WATCH: Logano on intense battle with Blaney: ‘He was there’
The turning point of the race was the Lap 251 caution that preceded the race-deciding restart. The final stage fired off on Lap 194 with 118 laps remaining, culminating in a fierce battle for the top spot between Logano and Blaney. Once Blaney cleared him on Lap 236, Logano darted to pit road with 77 laps left — with Blaney and Reddick following suit a lap later.
Byron, on the other hand, stayed out an extra 12 laps to pit at Lap 248 while his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott stayed out even longer. Then came a shake-up three circuits later when the right-rear brake rotor on Zane Smith‘s No. 71 Chevrolet exploded, sending Smith into a skid and into the Turn 1 wall.
The yellow flag waved with only seven cars on the lead lap — three of which were Championship 4 contenders Blaney, Logano and Reddick. Byron stayed out during the caution period to restart from the lead on his fresh tires — but any tire advantage they had was instantly wiped away.
SHOP: Joey Logano championship gear
The other of that coin, however, was the No. 24 Chevrolet finally had clean air as their competition had more traffic to work through.
“I think the biggest setback for us there was just the way that caution fell, allowing the Hendrick guys to kind of do an alternate strategy,” Jonathan Hassler, crew chief of Blaney‘s No. 12 team, told NASCAR.com. “And that next restart, we ended up third on the outside (in sixth) behind the 9 and the 5. Really just slowed us down. Joey was able to get past us there. I think that was probably the key pivotal moment for us. We were almost able to recover and get back.
“I think the difference was the 24 was on more or less new tires, got to stay out, inherit the lead, and then you had two teammates that had ran long enough that they could position themselves ahead of us when they hadn’t ran in front of us all day, and just kind of get in our way.”
Like Blaney, Byron returned to the Championship 4 for the second straight season. The strategy play by crew chief Rudy Fugle positioned Byron atop the scoring pylon, but the Team Penske power behind them was too strong to keep at bay.
“Yeah, if it goes green to the end, then I‘d like to see how that mixes us up too, right?” Fugle said. “I thought that they pitted too early for what I could stomach, so then you just run longer. And then the caution worked out. I think either way, it is what it is. We just didn’t have a fast enough car. But yeah, sometimes you have a tire advantage. Sometimes you can luck into something. But yeah, that’s all it was.”
While the Hendrick cars were able to fend off charges from Blaney, Logano allowed no time to rest. One lap after the restart, his No. 22 Ford stormed to the bottom of the track exiting Turn 4 and ripped past Byron and Bell in a daring three-wide move. Byron was almost caught off guard by the dramatic charge.
MORE: Byron: ‘We gave it everything we had’ | Reddick: ‘We have some things to learn’
“As good as they got through 1 and 2, it was just like, man, now they’re right on me,” Byron said. “I think going into the restart, I thought I had enough of a buffer and I didn’t really feel like one lap on tires that was that big a deal. I don’t think it was.
“I just think that they were fast on the short run all weekend, and that was kind of our struggle. Like we were decent throughout the run, but couldn’t really take off with a ton of speed. It wasn’t a huge surprise, but they were on me a little bit quicker than I thought they would be.”
Tyler Reddick‘s inaugural Championship 4 Sunday was quieter than his fellow members of the title quartet. The No. 45 Toyota from 23XI Racing was mired near the back of the top 10 through much of the 312-lap affair while Logano, Blaney and Byron were nestled inside the top five.
At the final stage break, Reddick was able to launch himself into the top five and stay within striking distance of his title foes, but that arrival was short-lived.
“I feel like Stage 2 when we broke out and got right behind the 24, 22 and 12, I thought, OK, let’s see where this goes,” Reddick said. “Over time, they kind of got away. I was within range of William and tried to make a move, and it didn’t work out. And then settled back in, and yeah, they steadily pulled away over time. That’s what kind of happened in Stage 3, as well.
“We‘ve got to find a little bit more speed, but we made the car better throughout the day. We maintained on pit road. We did all that we could, I think, with it. But certainly, it’s tough when they just get further and further away over time.”
Crew chief Billy Scott was proud of what he saw from both his driver and his team at large, representing an organization that only just completed its fourth season in the Cup Series.
“Some days, you get beat,” Scott told NASCAR.com. “This sport is tough. You certainly lose a lot more than you win. Those Penske cars have been tough here for a while, and that’s what happened today. We just got beat, but it was not for lack of preparation or lack of effort.”
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