Ryan Blaney admits NASCAR horror run was a 'big tester'

Ryan Blaney and Team Penske head into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs a stronger team after coming through a regular-season nightmare.

The 2023 champion suffered a horrific total of seven DNFs in 2025, including one particularly disastrous run of three in a row.

Things are now starting to fall into place for Blaney as he goes into postseason action on the back of six consecutive top-10 finishes. That run was topped off by a win at Daytona to close out the regular season.

While the nightmares of a dreadful March run are in the rearview mirror, they are absolutely not forgotten. Blaney opened up about them in an interview with FOX insider Bob Pockrass.

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Blaney on horror run of DNFs

Opening up on his earlier misfortunes, Blaney admitted: "It was honestly a big tester early in the year. Three in a row.

"We blew up at Phoenix, wrecked at Vegas and then blew up at Miami. So three consecutive weeks of DNF really kind of tested our team, I think. And how are we gonna respond? And we didn’t let it bother us.

"We just understood we were running really well, and we knew we were operating at a very high level, like everyone was doing their job very well. And just the finish wasn’t good.”

Despite those three consecutive race day disasters, Blaney was not concerned because the team was still functioning in the right way.

“I was happy with how we were communicating and operating as a team," the Team Penske star explained.

"And that’s the main thing I look for. And are our cars fast - and they were before we had those issues so our team didn’t let it rub them the wrong way, and we just kept going along with our business and doing the best job we could each week.

“I think that’s what this team does really good, they just focus on the next thing no matter what happened previously - good or bad.”

Blaney would eventually finish the regular season in fourth place in the standings, and begins his playoff bid at Darlington on Sunday night (6pm ET, USA) sitting in the same place in the playoff order.

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