NASCAR: What Ryan Blaney sees as a challenge in 2021

Ryan Blaney spoke about his 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season thus far and what about it has made it such a challenge, plus his outlook on what’s ahead.

Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney is one of 11 drivers who has already found victory lane through the first 14 races of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, and he was the sixth driver to do so, having won at Atlanta Motor Speedway back in March.

Blaney, who sits in seventh place in the point standings, had never won this early in a season before, and his victory made the 2021 season his fifth straight victory with a win. Another win would mark his first ever multi-win season. He has competed full-time since 2016.

The fact that there have been so many different winners so far this season, coupled with the fact that two drivers who still haven’t yet won in 2021 combined for 16 of 36 victories last year, makes it difficult for anybody to really gauge where they are at relative to the rest of the competition, specifically among the top contenders

But Blaney, who is in his fourth season with Team Penske, isn’t worried about that.

“There have been a lot of different winners this year already, and there are some drivers and teams who haven’t won yet this year that are going to eventually win,” Blaney told Beyond the Flag after discussing his partnership with BODYARMOR and his new BODYARMOR EDGE paint scheme for the upcoming Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“And it is a little bit tough to kind of gauge where you’re at, but I feel like you can do that week to week. You kind of gauge where all the teams are at that are running well, winning multiple races. Obviously Truex has won a few, Hendrick has been really strong, and I think we’ve been really close to them. So we just need to fine tune some stuff.”

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His focus, however, remains on the #12 team and the performances they are churning out week to week.

“But I try not to get too focused on how other teams are running,” he said. “I try to just focus on our group and just putting the best effort that we can put in week in and week out to stay competitive and stay up toward the front. You can be at the top right now, but all of the other teams are working just as hard as you are to try to be at the top as well. So it’s kind of just a big cycle of what teams are great at what time and who ends up being at the top at the right time.

“But yeah, it’s been a tough season thus far as far as just a lot of teams are really competitive right now, and it’s hard to separate yourselves, but hopefully we can separate ourselves soon as kind of a top team.”

Last season, Blaney had good speed all year long, but he only turned that into one win — a 0.007-second victory at Talladega Superspeedway. A disastrous opening round of the playoffs left him failing to reach the round of 12 for the first time in four career playoff appearances.

But he is far more confident at the round of 16 tracks this year and believes that that won’t happen again.

“Honestly, I look at the first round of the playoffs, and that’s probably our weakest group of tracks, at least from years prior,” he admitted. “I think Darlington and Richmond, we’ve struggled at a little bit in years past. We’ve already been to those two places this year, and I think we’ve made huge improvements.

“I think we’ve gotten points in one or both of the stages at Richmond and Darlington, and I think we ran 11th at Richmond and eighth at Darlington, and that’s what we need to do, just keep improving at those tracks that kind of have given us trouble in the past, and I’m really confident going back to the playoffs and going to those places and keep building because we’ve had pretty solid runs there as compared to what we have had in years prior.

“I think we’ve done a really good job of getting better at the places we need to get better at and looking forward to that first round, come the fall.”

The other track on the round of 16 schedule is Bristol Motor Speedway, where Blaney finished in eighth place back in March, but that March race was held on dirt, not on pavement like the playoff race is slated to be.

Though he is still seeking his second win of the 2021 season, Blaney believes that his victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this year was somewhat of a statement victory.

Prior to that victory, his three wins as a Team Penske driver had all come either via a last-lap pass, by 0.007 seconds, or both.

“I think that was a big statement win for us, kind of doing it in the fashion we did: running down the #5 car, which was the dominant car all day, and just making our car better all day,” he explained.

“It didn’t look like anyone could run with the #5 the whole race, and the last run played into our hands to where our car was really good. It went green to where we were able to run him down and drive by him with eight or nine laps to go. So that was a big statement for us. Hopefully we make another statement here very soon and get another win here in this season.”

Blaney is set to debut his new BODYARMOR EDGE paint scheme on the #12 Ford in this Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 6:00 p.m. ET.