Breaking news

NASCAR Cup Fontana

Ryan Blaney looking to change his end-of-race luck

Ryan Blaney has a strong start to the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season but it’s his finishes the last two weekends that have left him frustrated.

Jim Utter

Published: Mar 2, 2020, 7:43 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Ryan Blaney, Team Penske, Ford Mustang BodyArmor

Three races into the season, Blaney leads the series standings. He kicked off the year finishing second in the Daytona 500, inches away from victory.

He’s run up front and led laps in all three races and been in contention for the victory. The circumstances of losing out on the win the last two weeks, however, have been difficult ones.

At Las Vegas, Blaney was leading when a late-race caution provided a near-impossible choice whether to pit knowing all or most of those behind him would likely choose to do opposite of what he did.

Read Also:

That’s exactly what happened, as Blaney elected to pit, and many lead-lap cars stayed out, burying him in the field on the restart. He finished 11th.

Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, Blaney looked to have the only car capable of keeping up with race winner Alex Bowman, but while running second with three of 200 laps remaining, he was forced to pit with a corded tire.

“Yeah, we led a little bit and ran pretty good,” Blaney said. “We just corded a right rear at the end. We lost the lead there at the beginning of the third stage and kind of got swallowed up, and (Bowman) got away and got gone.

“We needed to be in front of him. It is just the way it goes sometimes.”

During the race, Blaney had finished second to Bowman in the first stage and won the second stage by a wide margin.

It was unclear whether he would be able to challenge for the lead in the final laps, but he almost certainly was looking at a runner-up finish.

Instead, he dropped to 19th, one lap down. His 54 laps led was second only to Bowman (110).

And again, Blaney was left to wonder, ‘What if?’

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article No win, but Jimmie Johnson "is going in the right direction"

Next article NASCAR shifts to center-locking wheels for 2021

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

WSJ Report: NASCAR is building 80+ race cars for Days of Thunder sequel

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 1 h

WSJ Report: NASCAR is building 80+ race cars for Days of Thunder sequel

Brennan Poole to leave Alpha Prime Racing; team owners 'disappointed' to see him go

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Charlotte II

11 h

Brennan Poole to leave Alpha Prime Racing; team owners 'disappointed' to see him go

Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

12 h

Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”

Winners and losers from NASCAR Cup at Charlotte after dramatic finish

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

15 h

Winners and losers from NASCAR Cup at Charlotte after dramatic finish

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts