Autosport Top 50 of 2023: #23 Ryan Blaney

The 29-year-old third-generation driver for Team Penske didn’t look like a Cup championship contender early in the season. But when it counted the most – in the playoffs – Ryan Blaney and his #12 Ford team were at their best.

Critical playoff wins at Talladega and Martinsville advanced him to the Championship 4 at Phoenix for the first time.

After Christopher Bell wrecked out early, Blaney then bested two of the year’s top drivers – Hendrick team-mates William Byron and Kyle Larson (the 2021 Cup champion) had won the most races and led most laps respectively – to earn his first series title.

Roger Penske on another year of Cup success

Blaney’s breakthrough helped cap another banner year for motorsport icon Roger Penske. His breakthrough NASCAR Cup Series championship was the fourth for Team Penske and 44th motorsport title in the organisation’s storied history.

Although he finished second in the season finale – Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain won the race – Blaney was highest among the four title contenders and handed Penske his second consecutive Cup title. Penske has now won both Cup championships since the introduction of the Next Gen car into the series in 2022, following Joey Logano’s success last year.

Photo by: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Images

Blaney hadn't finished higher than seventh in the standings before his 2023 Cup Series title

“You win one and you hope you can win it because you start all over again. They don’t give you an extra lap ahead of everybody after you win one,” said Penske, referencing Logano’s title a year ago.

“I would say that it took us a while and with Ford engineering and certainly with Yates and the motor side we came prepared, and we got better through the season. I think we understood the car better and certainly it turned out. 

“In the last six years, we’ve won 148 races and 12 championships, so when you think about the total Team Penske effort, it’s been amazing. I can’t even look back because I don’t know how we ever did it.”

"All of the people today that are successful and made us successful, just like Blaney, came in at the bottom. I think we’ve got to continue to do that and that will keep us very sharp at the top" Roger Penske

Blaney ended the season with three wins, eight top five and 18 top 10 finishes. A full-time member of Penske’s Cup line-up since 2018, he had previously never finished higher than seventh in the series standings (in 2019 and 2021).

Penske said expectations are set high each year, but the accomplishments remain special.

“Expectations are you’ve got to be a winner,” he said. “We don’t really want to finish second and we want to win. We try to hire the people and one thing is we fill the funnel from the bottom and not from the top.

“All of the people today that are successful and made us successful, just like Blaney, came in at the bottom. I think we’ve got to continue to do that and that will keep us very sharp at the top.”

Photo by: NASCAR Media

Blaney's Cup title was the 44th for the Penske organisation in its history