A third-generation racer who won Truck Series races as a teenager, took his first Cup win in 2017 and claimed the 2023 championship in the No. 12 car.
Ryan Blaney is an American NASCAR driver who won the 2023 Cup Series championship for Team Penske in the No. 12 Ford. He began in quarter midgets, became a Truck Series winner as a teenager and has 20 Cup victories.
Ryan Blaney is an American stock car driver who has raced full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for Team Penske since 2018, in the No. 12 Ford. He won the 2023 Cup championship and has 20 Cup victories to his name. He is also a third-generation racer, the son of former Cup driver Dave Blaney.
How did Blaney's early racing career unfold?
Blaney started in quarter midgets and was nine when he took his first win, then added Bandolero cars. At twelve he moved up to Legends cars, claimed the Lowe's Motor Speedway Summer Shootout and took the Young Lions Winter Heat points championship.
He also made his late model debut at twelve at Orange County Speedway. At fifteen, in 2009, he raced the PASS South Super Late Model Series. He ended second in points and took the Rookie of the Year award, and he also claimed the Eastern Grand Nationals event in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Southern Six Pack series gave him the 2010 title, and his second consecutive PASS South points finish came in the same year. In 2011 he won the PASS South championship outright, with two wins at Dillon Motor Speedway and Ace Speedway.
A third-generation racer who went from quarter midgets to a Cup title in one of NASCAR's most competitive eras.
How did his first NASCAR seasons go?
Blaney made his NASCAR debuts in 2011, competing in the ARCA Racing Series and the K&N Pro Series West and East. He scored a top-10 finish in every start in those three series. His first NASCAR victory came in the final K&N Pro Series West round, held at Phoenix International Raceway.
In 2012 he ran six K&N Pro Series East races for family-owned DB Racing and drove select Nationwide Series races for Tommy Baldwin Racing and Team Penske. His Nationwide debut came at Richmond International Raceway, where he finished seventh.
His Truck Series debut at Bristol Motor Speedway ended sixth. On September 15, 2012, he won his first Truck race at Iowa Speedway, and at that point he was the series' youngest winner, at eighteen, eight months and fifteen days old. The earlier mark belonged to Kyle Busch.
What happened in his 2013 and 2014 seasons?
In 2013 Blaney ran the full Truck schedule for Brad Keselowski Racing, finishing sixth in points and taking the Rookie of the Year award. He won his first Truck pole at Kentucky Speedway in June and his second Truck race at Pocono Raceway in August.
That year he also won his first Nationwide race at Kentucky, leading 96 of the 200 laps and beating Austin Dillon and Matt Crafton. He was the only winner of the 2013 Nationwide season who had no Sprint Cup experience.
The 2014 Truck season was close. He finished second in points, twenty behind Matt Crafton, after losing at Dover to Kyle Busch by half a second. He did win a Nationwide race at Bristol that August, beating Busch in a green-white-checkered finish, and a Truck race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park by 0.49 seconds.
How did his Cup career begin with Penske and Wood Brothers?
Blaney made his Cup debut in 2014 for Team Penske, finishing 27th at Kansas Speedway. He then signed with Wood Brothers Racing and drove a limited schedule in the famous No. 21 car in 2015, picking up his first Cup top 10 at Talladega with a fourth-place finish.
In 2016 he ran his first full Cup season with Wood Brothers, despite the team being left out of NASCAR's new Charter system. His best finish of that year came at Kansas, and he lost the Rookie of the Year award to Chase Elliott.
Why did the 2017 season matter so much?
In 2017 Go Fas Racing loaned its charter to the No. 21 team, which guaranteed Blaney a place in every race. He nearly won the Daytona 500, charging from fifth on the final lap to finish second to Kurt Busch.
At Texas he led 148 laps and won the first two stages, but a late pit stop error cost him the race. At Kansas he won his first Cup pole, and in June he won at Pocono Raceway, his first Cup victory, which qualified him for the playoffs.
He moved to Team Penske's new No. 12 car for 2018 and ended the 2017 season ninth in points, with one win, four top fives, fourteen top 10s and two poles. That ninth-place finish was the highest for a Wood Brothers driver since Morgan Shepherd finished sixth in 1994.
How did he perform at Team Penske from 2018?
Blaney's Penske years began with the 2018 Daytona 500, where he led the most laps before contact with Kurt Busch sent him to the pits. He later won the Roval race at Charlotte, passing Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson on the final lap for his first win with the team.
The 2019 season kept him among the top 10 in the standings. He won the Talladega fall race by 0.007 seconds over Ryan Newman, but was eliminated in the Round of 8.
The 2020 Daytona 500 ended in controversy. On the final lap Blaney nudged Ryan Newman, who was out front, and Newman was sent into the outside wall in a violent crash, and Denny Hamlin won the race in the second-closest finish in its history. Blaney later said that a phone call with Newman helped him come to terms with the incident.
He won the GEICO 500 at Talladega in 2020, edging Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by 0.007 seconds, and finished ninth in points. In 2021 he won at Atlanta, Michigan and the regular-season finale at Daytona, and finished seventh in the standings.
The 2022 season was winless for the first thirteen races. He then won the NASCAR All-Star Race and clinched a playoff spot in the regular-season finale, before ending eighth in points.
What did the 2023 championship run look like?
Blaney's breakthrough came in 2023 when he won the Coca-Cola 600, ending a winless run of 59 races. It was a dominant performance, with the most laps led and a stage win along the way.
Later that year a hard impact into the inside wall at Nashville left him with concussion-like symptoms. He called it the hardest impact of his career and pressed NASCAR for a SAFER barrier on that wall, a view that NASCAR's Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer echoed.
In the playoffs he won at Talladega by 0.012 seconds over Kevin Harvick, and at Martinsville he took his third win of the season to reach the Championship 4. A hard-fought run at Phoenix ended with a second-place finish, which was enough to clinch the 2023 title.
What did 2024 to 2026 bring?
In 2024 Blaney won at the inaugural Iowa race and at Pocono, seven years after his first Cup win there. He reached the Championship 4 for a second straight year and finished behind his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano in the Phoenix finale, when Logano went on to win the title.
The 2025 season brought wins at Nashville and at the Daytona summer race, where he edged Daniel Suarez by 0.031 seconds. He won again in the playoffs at New Hampshire and closed the year with a Phoenix victory, finishing sixth in the standings.
The 2026 season opened with a 27th-place retirement at Daytona. A first win followed three weeks later at Phoenix, and on May 6 he signed a contract extension with Team Penske. An eight-race top 10 streak included a win at Atlanta, and he went on to take a second straight win at New Hampshire.
What was his work outside the car?
From 2017 to the end of 2023, Blaney hosted the Glass Case of Emotion podcast with Kim Coon and Chuck Bush. In June 2017 he worked as a pit reporter on Fox NASCAR's driver-only broadcast, and he later became a commentator in the booth for those broadcasts.
He has also appeared on screen. He voiced Ryan 'Inside' Laney in the Pixar film Cars 3 and had a cameo as a delivery boy in Logan Lucky. In 2018 he played Special Agent Nathan Wood in an episode of Taken, and in 2019 he appeared as himself in the Netflix series The Crew.
Blaney also appeared on NASCAR video game covers, first as one of three cover drivers for NASCAR 21 and later on the NASCAR 25 cover. He appeared in the 2022 USA Network show Race for the Championship and in the 2024 Netflix documentary NASCAR: Full Speed.
What does his season-by-season record look like?
| Season | Team | Wins | Points finish | Defining result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Wood Brothers | 0 | Part-time | Fourth at Talladega |
| 2016 | Wood Brothers | 0 | Full-time debut | Sixth at Las Vegas |
| 2017 | Wood Brothers | 1 | Ninth | First Cup win at Pocono |
| 2018 | Team Penske | 1 | Tenth | Roval win |
| 2019 | Team Penske | 1 | Top 10 | Talladega fall race by 0.007 seconds |
| 2020 | Team Penske | 1 | Ninth | GEICO 500 win |
| 2021 | Team Penske | 3 | Seventh | Atlanta, Michigan and Daytona wins |
| 2022 | Team Penske | 0 points-paying | Eighth | NASCAR All-Star Race win |
| 2023 | Team Penske | 3 | Champion | Coca-Cola 600 and Phoenix finale |
| 2024 | Team Penske | 3 | Second | Iowa, Pocono and Martinsville wins |
| 2025 | Team Penske | 4 | Sixth | Nashville, Daytona summer and New Hampshire wins |
Who is Ryan Blaney away from the track?
His parents are Lisa and Dave Blaney, and he grew up as the only son alongside two sisters, Emma and Erin. Among his closest friends in the sport are Erik Jones and Chase Elliott, along with Bubba Wallace and William Byron.
He is married to model Gianna Tulio, and the couple has a son. Blaney is also an avid fan of Star Wars and the television series Trailer Park Boys.
