Defending NASCAR Champion Ryan Blaney: Fords Have “Work to Do”

Ryan Blaney, who brought home the NASCAR Cup championship last season for Ford, a year after his teammate Joey Logano did the same, remained pretty honest with where Fords stand at this point of the current season compared to the other manufacturers. Blaney finished in 3rd place in Las Vegas in a race that was dominated by Kyle Larson as he made it 3/3 wins for Chevrolets so far this year.

After the race, when Blaney was asked if there was anything he took from Vegas going forward, the #12 driver didn’t beat around the bush with his response. “I don’t know,” he said. “Chevys are still fast. Toyotas are still fast. Fords, we had a good show today too.”

“We just got work to do.”

But Vegas wasn’t all that bad for Ryan Blaney as he acknowledged the progress they made over the weekend. “We got better all day from where we started, from where we qualified. I thought we ended kind of our best probably,” he said.

“We got in front of the #19, the #11, who was pretty good … #54 … didn’t have anything for the #5 or #45 all day but hopefully, good learning experience going forward.”

Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain feud brewing?

One thing about Ryan Blaney is that everyone finds him pretty likable. That, however, cannot be said about Ross Chastain, who in the last two seasons, has developed somewhat of a reputation as a very aggressive driver on the track, entering his name in the bad books of most of his rivals.

But in Vegas, it was the villainous Chastain who found himself wronged by the hero Blaney as he complained how he didn’t like the way the defending champ raced him toward the end. The Trackhouse Racing driver said about Blaney after the race, “It was pretty cool to see his evolution with the air blocking. I was proud of him.”

This ended up inciting a subtle but pretty hilarious response from Ryan Blaney as he reacted to Chastain’s words with a simple GIF that said, “It’s ironic.” 

https://t.co/Ae3q453b3q pic.twitter.com/DOsuToCv9s

— Ryan Blaney (@Blaney) March 4, 2024

So it’s worth wondering if this is going to be a case in which Chastain would just move on from this situation, or if he takes it personally and decides to give Blaney a bit of a payback in the future.