Kevin Harvick unearths Toyota’s 2024 decision amid Ford's 'probable' arrangement after Ryan Blaney’s engine explosion

Former Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick recently shared his thoughts on Ryan Blaney losing his second engine in Miami. The 2023 NCS champion has suffered significant setbacks in the form of DNFs in the last three races. However, to everyone's surprise, two of those setbacks came due to the engines of his #12 Team Penske Ford blowing up. Kevin Harvick thinks Ford might be doing what Toyota did last season to fix a similar issue.

While he is the highest-placed Penske driver in the drivers' standings (P10), Ryan Blaney has lost two engines in the last three races. He lost his first engine in Phoenix and the second one last Sunday (March 23) in Miami after leading 124 laps of the race and winning Stage 1. This is concerning for all Ford-powered teams, as modern-day NASCAR engines are supposed to be highly reliable.

However, Toyota also faced a similar issue early last season before eventually fixing it later in the year. On the recent episode of his Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick spoke about how Ryan Blaney's #12 Ford might have had a different engine in Miami compared to Phoenix and Las Vegas because it's rare to have engine failures so frequently. He suggested that Toyota must have used the same tactic last season to try and figure out the issues.

"That's the second one," Kevin Harvick said about Blaney blowing his second engine in three races (21:30 onwards). "And... we talked about the Toyotas last year and what was the issue with the engines, and ultimately they got it fixed. But they blew up a lot of motors, and so having these engines close together like that means that they're not probably on the same rotation of the same engine batch. It's probably a different engine. Well, the engine at Phoenix is gone because it blew up too."

The engine failure at Homestead Miami dropped Blaney by three spots in the drivers' championship, where he now sits on 10th with 162 points.

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Kevin Harvick highlights Ryan Blaney’s lost opportunities

The Team Penske Fords have been some of the fastest cars on the grid since the start of the 2025 Cup season. The number of laps led by Joey Logano (247), Austin Cindric (159), and Ryan Blaney (148) in the six races so far is proof of the outright pace in the Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

Kevin Harvick spoke about how Blaney has lost two incredible opportunities to win races in the last three events.

"I don't know if this is a trend, a coincidence, or what that is, but Ryan Blaney has had two opportunities, which especially at Homestead, (he had) a car that was absolutely dominant to go and win the race, and it's gone," Kevin Harvick said.

Ryan Blaney has the worst average finish of 21.5 out of the three despite being the highest-placed Penske Ford in the championship. Interestingly, this is the first time Blaney has suffered three consecutive DNFs. The last time he had to retire from a race due to an engine issue was in 2019

“It just stinks,” Blaney shared his frustration after the race. "We had a really fast Ford Mustang. We led a lot of laps… It was gonna be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but it just didn’t really work out for us.”

Ryan Blaney will look for redemption in the Cook Out 400 at the Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, March 30.