Ryan Blaney will begin his pursuit of a second NASCAR Cup Series championship with a significantly different team around him.
Just days before the Chase opens at Darlington Raceway, Team Penske has swapped the pit crews assigned to Blaney’s No. 12 Ford and Austin Cindric’s No. 2 Ford.
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A Team Penske spokesperson confirmed the change to NASCAR.com.
The timing alone makes the move notable. Both drivers qualified for NASCAR’s 16-driver Chase, meaning Penske isn’t simply moving resources from an eliminated team to a championship contender.
Instead, it’s giving the stronger-performing pit crew to the driver entering the postseason with considerably better championship positioning.
And the numbers explain why.
Ryan Blaney’s Pit Crew Has Been a Major Weakness
Blaney enters Darlington as the No. 2 seed in the Chase with 2,075 points, only 25 behind championship leader Denny Hamlin.
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His pit crew hasn’t performed anywhere near that level.
Through the regular-season finale at Daytona, Blaney’s No. 12 crew ranked 32nd among NASCAR’s 35 full-time teams, according to NASCAR Insights.
Even more striking is how much that performance has cost him.
NASCAR Insights found that Blaney has lost a series-worst 129 positions on pit road this season. The next-highest total belongs to Carson Hocevar, whose No. 77 Spire Motorsports crew has cost him 70 positions.
That’s a 59-position gap between Blaney and the next-worst mark in the series.
For a driver beginning the Chase only 25 points behind Hamlin, it’s an obvious vulnerability to carry into the 10 races that will determine the championship.
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Team Penske isn’t waiting to find out whether it becomes a bigger one.
Austin Cindric’s Pit Crew Moves to the No. 12
Beginning at Darlington, Blaney will inherit the crew that spent the regular season servicing Cindric’s No. 2 Ford.
That group ranked 10th in the Cup Series through Daytona, a considerable upgrade based on the season-long numbers.
The crew moving to Blaney’s No. 12 includes jackman Jourdan Osinskie, fueler Andrew Lackey, front tire changer Justin Armwood, rear tire changer Geoffrey Wall and tire carrier Jesse Mills.
Cindric, meanwhile, will receive the crew previously assigned to Blaney.
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The swap creates an unusual dynamic because Cindric isn’t out of championship contention.
He qualified for the Chase as the No. 15 seed and begins the postseason with 2,005 points, 95 behind Hamlin. Penske is therefore making a clear adjustment between two teams that still technically have championship aspirations.
Blaney simply begins with far less ground to make up.
Team Penske Isn’t Waiting for the Chase to Expose the Problem
This also isn’t Penske’s first attempt to address the No. 12 team’s pit-road struggles.
The organization made changes to Blaney’s crew earlier this season, including an April adjustment ahead of the Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.
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The results apparently weren’t enough.
Now comes a much larger move at the most consequential point of the season.
Pit-road performance is always important, but NASCAR’s revamped Chase format makes throwing away positions particularly costly. There are no three-race elimination rounds and subsequent points resets to erase a bad stretch.
Every point Blaney accumulates over the next 10 races contributes toward his championship total.
That makes repeatedly surrendering track position on pit road a problem Team Penske can ill afford.
Blaney has done enough through the first 26 races to establish himself as one of NASCAR’s leading championship contenders.
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Now Penske is making sure one of his team’s biggest weaknesses doesn’t follow him into the races that matter most.
The first test comes Sunday at Darlington.
And when Blaney brings the No. 12 down pit road during the Southern 500, the people waiting for him will be very different from the ones who got him through the regular season.
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