AVONDALE, Ariz. — Ryan Blaney’s bid to win a second NASCAR Cup Series championship came to an end last weekend with a bump by William Byron at Virginia’s Martinsville Speedway.
The dejection of not being one of the final four contenders for the title didn’t deter the Team Penske driver once he arrived at Phoenix Raceway for the season finale. If anything, it made him want to win the race even more.
Determined to cap his season with a checkered flag and put last week’s disappointment behind him, Blaney passed fellow Ford driver Brad Keselowski of RFK Racking just before the finish line to win Sunday’s race a Phoenix by less than a second (0.097) in a green-white-checkered overtime finish.
Kyle Larson won his second Cup Series championship, with his third-place finish in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet higher than the other three finalists in the race as Denny Hamlin was sixth and Chase Briscoe 18th in Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas with Hendrick’s William Byron 33rd.
Still, Blaney earned a little bit of redemption by winning the race at a track where he had come so close in the past.
“I don’t know if it’s like a huge relief off our shoulders,” Blaney said. “I’m just proud that we were in it today and this whole weekend and brought our best stuff. Even though we weren’t a part of the championship (competition), we’re determined to try to end the year for Ford and Team Penske with a win.”
Blaney won three times during the 2025 season, but he went into Martinsville needing a win in the final race of the third round of the Cup Series playoffs to be one of the four title-eligible drivers at Phoenix. The 32-year-old led 177 laps at the Virginia short track after starting 31st and was in front with 44 laps left.
Blaney’s bid to advance ended a lap later, when Byron moved him up the track with a bump from the rear to set up a pass on the low side. Byron led the rest of the way, fending off Blaney on a late restart to earn the title shot instead of him.
“We were in the spot that we were in,” Blaney said. “Our goal this weekend was to try to win the race, have great momentum going into the wintertime. Understood that we weren’t going for a championship, but we were going to make the best out of it.”
Blaney won the 2023 Cup Series championship at Phoenix by finishing second to Ross Chastain and was third last year in his second time in the final four, finishing behind teammate Joey Logano — who won his second title in three years and the third of his career — and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell.
Blaney had finished second in the season finale at Phoenix the past three years and started this year’s season finale fifth. He led 20 laps, but he couldn’t seem to stay in front once he got there.
With Hamlin in the lead, a late caution sent the race into overtime and a good chunk of the field into the pits. Blaney’s crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, made the decision to go with two tires on the final pit stop, putting Blaney behind three cars that stayed out on old tires.
Blaney figured the drivers in front of him would struggle, and he was right. Making sure he didn’t interfere with Larson’s championship bid, he quickly moved to the front and pulled up next to Keselowski along the back stretch, passing him just before the checkered flag.
“Nobody gave up,” Hassler said. “Ryan did a good job handling that situation.”
The win was Blaney’s career-high fourth of the season to go with victories at Nashville Superspeedway, Daytona International Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. From a career perspective, it was also his seventh Cup Series win in a playoff race and his 17th overall.
“This is what we needed to do today if we didn’t make it; obviously there’s what could have been,” said Michael Nelson, the president of Team Penske’s NASCAR section. “This is our goal. Last week’s in the rearview mirror. We had to come here and win. That was the goal with our teams. Man, it was really great to get that done today.”
No, it wasn’t for a championship. Yes, Blaney and his team are going to enjoy it just the same.







