23XI Racing has been the team to beat in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. Tyler Reddick has won all three races so far and sits atop the points table. His teammate, Bubba Wallace, follows closely behind in second place with top finishes in all three races as well. But Kevin Harvick expects this balance to be disrupted after the upcoming race at the Phoenix Raceway this Sunday.
Advertisement
The icon expressed on his Harvick Happy Hour podcast that Team Penske, and not 23XI Racing, will be the team to watch out for in the deserts of Arizona. He backed Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano as his favorites to perform the best, casting a special emphasis on the former. He can’t see a scenario in which Blaney isn’t a top contender on Sunday.
He said, “I think Ryan Blaney is gonna be tough to beat. He had a ton of speed this weekend. He’s been good at every race. Penske cars have typically been pretty good there from the 12 standpoint. The 22’s been hit or miss [and] the 2 [Austin Cindric], I can’t ever tell where they are as far as what they have going on.”
Harvick expects Blaney to have the most speed on track. Interestingly, the No. 12 driver has only one win at Phoenix in 20 appearances. It came last November in the 2025 season finale. But his average finish rate of 10.9 at the track is the third-best among active drivers. He has also finished as the runner-up in four of the last seven races at the track. It can be agreed that it is about time he picked up a few more wins there, especially with Penske’s upper hand that they seem to have in Avondale.
The “gulf” between Ryan Blaney and his teammates
For a while now, Blaney has been performing noticeably better than his teammates. He has two top-10 finishes so far in the season. Logano has one, and Cindric has none. The reason for the difference in performances remains a mystery. But it has become so glaring that even the most seasoned eyes in the sport are beginning to take notice.
Veteran reporter Jordan Bianchi said last month, “There’s such a disconnect between what the No. 12 team is able to do most weeks and what their teammates are able to do. Why does that gulf exist? Who knows?” Logano and Cindric will need to pick themselves up and run as fast as Blaney does or risk falling too far behind to catch up. After all, the Chase format is not as forgiving as the previous elimination model, and every driver needs to be wary of that.
