Ryan Blaney’s crew chief sounds off about Team Penske pit crew, highlights the ‘mistake’ in Darlington

Ryan Blaney, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion, had a decent outing on Sunday at Darlington Raceway, finishing fifth in the race and moving up by three spots in the drivers' standings. However, his crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, didn't sound very pleased with the pit crew of the #12 team as he pointed out a major mistake that cost their driver a lot of time in the race.

Ryan Blaney started the race from the fifth row in P9 and stayed in the top 10 for almost the entire race. He had one of the fastest cars on the grid after the #24 Chevy of William Byron, who led the race for the first 243 laps.

Blaney even got the chance to fight with Tyler Reddick for the lead in the closing laps but lost out to several drivers during the overtime restart. It was a decent day overall for Blaney, apart from a couple of slow pit stops that cost him track position on both occasions.

The slowest pit stop for Ryan Blaney came in the second stage on lap 189, which dropped him back to P20. However, he was able to recover his positions quickly. When asked after the race about the job done by the pit crew, crew chief Jonathan Hassler mentioned that they need to keep improving and avoid making such mistakes in the future.

"If you look, they definitely had one mistake with the jack that cost us a lot of time. Our last stop was clean, 9.03 (seconds) I think, but the guys were running low 8's and the #24 (of William Byron), I think we matched his time at the last stop, but in pit stall #1, he just had that advantage. So I think it's like anything else in sport, just takes a little bit of changing along the way and we'll be able to recover from this." (00:35 onwards)

Blaney currently sits seventh in the drivers’ standings, and he is the highest-placed Ford in the championship.

"Just wasn't meant to be," Ryan Blaney left frustrated after his P5 finish

Despite dropping down the field a couple of times due to slow pit stops, Ryan Blaney always recovered to the top 5 quickly. He eventually got the lead of the race with just four laps to go and looked set for a victory.

However, soon after Blaney got to the lead, a spin from Kyle Larson brought out the caution flag on lap 290, sending the race into overtime. Once again, Blaney lost his lead and several other spots during the final pit stops and eventually crossed the chequered flag in fifth place. Speaking after the race, the Team Penske driver shared his frustration of never being able to control the race.

“Never really got to control the race,” Blaney said. “I feel like nothing ever really went our way. Pit road, we got to work on a little bit. Caution coming out during the cycle set us way back. I felt like we just kept making up spots… I really wanted and would have liked to have won here. That would have been really, really neat...Just wasn't meant to be.” (00:32 0nwards)

Ryan Blaney will return to Cup racing next Sunday, April 13, in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.