“It Gets Under My Skin”: Ryan Blaney Defends NASCAR Playoff Format, Slams “Mickey Mouse” Champion Claims

Even though Ryan Blaney won the 2023 NASCAR Cup championship fair and square, he still hears or reads online comments from critics saying that he wasn’t deserving of the title, that it was a manufactured playoff system and that he gamed the system and format.

In total that year, he earned three wins, had eight top-five and 18 top-10 finishes, and sealed it off with a win and two runner-up finishes in the final three races of the season.

Blaney appeared on the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio morning show on Wednesday and talked about how the negative comments still bother him, even though he and teammate Joey Logano have won the last three Cup titles between them (Logano in 2022 and 2024 and Blaney in 2023).

Blaney said, “What kind of bugs me a little bit is the people that are so diehard on, like if you’ve won a championship in this format that we have now, ‘Oh, it’s a Mickey Mouse championship and it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t count.’ 

“It’s like, man, everyone has the same opportunity as the guy who won it. This isn’t the full season points. Everyone always talks about how this guy would have won the full season points. Well, that’s great, but we haven’t used that format in 20 years.”

For the record, if the old points system was in place in 2023, William Byron would have won the championship and Blaney would have finished sixth.

Blaney comes into this weekend’s race at Indianapolis in a solid position: seventh, with one win, seven top-five and nine top-10 finishes. That one win punched his ticket for an automatic berth in the upcoming 10-race playoffs.

Five races remain before the Cup playoffs begin: Indy, Iowa, Watkins Glen, Richmond and the regular season finale in Daytona.

Blaney elevates his game during the Cup Playoffs

To his credit, Blaney is one of the best performers in the playoffs. He and his Team Penske crew seem to take their game to another level when they’re in the post-season.

In addition to his championship in 2023, Blaney finished a close second to teammate Logano in last season’s title battle, with three wins, 12 top-five and 18 top-10 finishes.

“Everyone’s opinions are different,” Blaney said. “I look at our championship as we had a good year and we even had a better playoffs than everybody else, we rose to the occasion when we needed to, we dug in and had the best car during the playoffs, had some big wins and were able to get the championship.

“Everyone can have their opinion, it gets under my skin a little bit when they’re like, ‘You guys didn’t deserve that championship.’

“I’m like, ‘What are you talking about, man? We went through the grinder, everybody digs in and we were resilient when it mattered.”