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Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney recently became the sole nominee from NASCAR for the Best Driver category in the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) Awards for 2024. Blaney was nominated alongside the 2023 Best Driver in ESPY Awards winner Max Verstappen.
The ESPY Awards are given to the athletes who have excelled in their sports. In the Best Driver category, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney is up against four-time NHRA Funny Car World champion Matt Hagan, the two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou, and the three-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen.
Motorsports journalist Kelly Crandall posted the nominees on X (formerly Twitter):
"The nominees for the ESPYS have been announced. Ryan Blaney, the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, among those in the Best Driver category. The only other motorsports mention is Max Verstappen in the Best Record-Breaking Performance"
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A few NASCAR fans on X were not thrilled with Blaney's nomination and bashed his entry on the list. One fan claimed the Hendrick Motorsports star Chase Elliott was the best driver and wrote:
"Clearly the best driver is @chaseelliott"
Another fan claimed that Kyle Larson is the best all-round driver:
"Best all around driver in the world and it's not even close is @KyleLarsonRacin," the fan said.
Another user on X wrote:
"I like Blaney, but he wasn't even the best NASCAR driver last year. Sure, he took advantage of NASCAR's weird playoff system, but Byron, Larson, Hamlin were all better drivers. And stuff like this is why I despise NASCAR's playoff format. Great drivers get ignored."
Here are a few more reactions from fans:
"Ha, he wasn't even the best driver in NASCAR last year! Winning a championship doesn't mean what it used to," a fan wrote.
"NASCAR the only racing series where the champion wasn’t even a top 5 driver statistically in their own series," another fan opined.
A motorsports fan shared his thoughts on the possible Best Driver winner at the 2024 ESPY Awards and wrote:
"An NHRA guy will never win the award. Palou is racing against a field of majority F3 drivers in a series that's horrible at promoting itself. Blaney is popular but nascar is not on ESPN. Max will win, and it's well deserved with that record breaking year."
The Best Driver nomination at the 2024 ESPY Awards is Blaney's first-ever nomination. Since the Best Driver category's introduction in 1993, 19 winners were from NASCAR. NASCAR legends Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have won four ESPY Best Driver awards each and are tied for the most number of awards in the category.
A brief look into Ryan Blaney's 2024 Cup Series season
The 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney was struggling to make his mark for the better part of the current season.
After an impressive start with three top-five finishes in the first four races of the season, Blaney secured his maiden win of the season at the inaugural race at Iowa Speedway. He fended off Hendrick Motorsports' William Byron and crossed the checkered flag 0.716 seconds ahead of the latter. Blaney confirmed his berth in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Playoffs with this victory.
The Cup Series is next heading to Nashville Superspeedway for the Ally 400 race. After 18 races in the regular season, Blaney sits at P8 in the points standings. With a win already under his belt, Blaney also has five top-5s and seven top-10 finishes so far.
