Ryan Blaney could have won the first race of the season for Team Penske on Sunday at Darlington if not for the late race caution triggered by Kyle Larson on lap 290. Former NASCAR driver Tony Hirschman Jr. spoke about the harsh and somewhat shameful reality for Team Penske that they haven’t got any wins in 2025 despite having some of the fastest cars on the grid.
Blaney was in contention for victory throughout the Goodyear 400, running in the top 10 for most of the race. He found himself in the lead ahead of Tyler Reddick with four laps to go. With the speed and cornering ability he had throughout the race, he could easily have won the race from there. However, he lost his lead in the pits when he stopped during the final caution.
Denny Hamlin capitalized on the final restart after taking the lead with a speedy pit stop and went on to claim the fifth victory for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota. The only victory for Ford has come from the Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry.
Tony Hirschman Jr., a former NASCAR driver who competed in the Busch Series (now Xfinity Series) and later in the Whelen Modified Tour, was the guest on the Door Bumper Clear (DBC) podcast. Speaking about Ryan Blaney and Team Penske, he shared:
“Blaney didn’t win the race yesterday, but just watching him, his maneuverability. Obviously they have tons and tons and tons of speed right now. You know, it’s a shame that they don’t have the wins. They deserved a few wins, but the speed they have, and yesterday it was impressive to watch him, his maneuverability. He could run top, could rip the wall, could run the bottom, it was pretty impressive.”
The Penske driver ended up with a P5 result on Sunday and moved up three spots in the drivers’ standings, where he sits in seventh and has 236 points to his name.
Ryan Blaney left frustrated after his missed opportunity in Darlington
As Hirschman Jr. mentioned in the podcast, Ryan Blaney probably had one of the best cars on the grid at Darlington. However, he suffered a couple of setbacks during the race, which had to do with his pit stops. He had two slow pitstops on lap 130 and lap 189.
The second one sent him down all the way back to P20. However, he was quickly able to regain the positions, and both times, he climbed back into the top 5, where he raced for most of the race.
Speaking after the race, the 2023 NCS champion let out his frustration and said that he just didn’t have any luck.
“I thought we finally had the race won…” Blaney said of the moment when he took the lead from Reddick. “We did a good job. Great strategy call of kind of running long, giving us time to get down, run down the 45, a lot of those guys that short-pitted. It was a great call.”
“Never really got to control the race. I feel like nothing ever really went our way. Pit road, we got to work on a little bit. Caution coming out during the cycle set us way back. I felt like we just kept making up spots… Just really wasn’t meant to be,” he added.
Ryan Blaney will be back at Cup Racing next Sunday, April 13, for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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Edited by Hitesh Nigam
