Ryan Blaney completes red-hot playoff run with first NASCAR Cup Series championship
Not many had Ryan Blaney pegged as a title favorite entering NASCAR's 10-race playoff to decide the Cup Series championship.
Yet he ended the year hotter than any other driver and his runner-up finish at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday was enough to capture the crown.
Blaney had the best car out of the four title contenders — Kyle Larson, William Byron and Christopher Bell were the others — for most of the afternoon, but had to earn it all on the track after Larson came out of the final pit stop ahead of him.
Blaney was able to pass Larson for second place behind leader Ross Chastain following a spirited battle and then pulled away in the final laps.
Chastain won the race, the first driver in 10 years of the current playoff format to win the season finale despite not being championship eligible. Leave that to NASCAR's most notorious agent of chaos.
The race between the championship four was quickly cut down to the championship three, as Bell blew a brake rotor just past the 100-lap mark and failed to finish the race. He was the longest shot for the title regardless, but it's still a disappointing way for his season to end.
Blaney completes his title-winning campaign with three wins, eight top-five finishes, 18 top-10s and 562 laps led. These don't seem like championship-caliber numbers, but he stepped up when it mattered, finishing second, first and second in the season's final three races.
It's also important to note that Blaney's Penske Racing team struggled for speed throughout much of the year. His teammate Joey Logano, the defending champion from 2022, failed to even advance past the first round of the playoffs. His other teammate Austin Cindric, the 2022 Rookie of the Year, suffered a sophomore slump as he regressed to a 24th-place points finish.
Given that context, Blaney is more than deserving of taking home the 2023 title as the champion of NASCAR's premier series. He joins Logano, Larson, Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr. and Brad Keselowski as active drivers to have won a Cup title at least once.
One name missing from that list is 2014 champ Kevin Harvick, who wrapped up his full-time Cup Series career on Sunday. Harvick got to go out on a high note, as he finished seventh after leading 23 laps early on.
The same could be said for the 2023 season on the whole. It had its ups and downs, but when all was said and done, it left us with a thrilling title race, an exciting first-time champion and a feat that hadn't been accomplished in a full decade.
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