Winning a championship title in the NASCAR Cup Series is in itself a tough nut to crack. However, what’s harder is to defend one’s title in the years to come. Thankfully, Ryan Blaney has got his trump card ready for the 2024 championship contention.
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Since pairing up with crew chief Jonathan Hassler, the Team Penske icon has been steadily climbing up the stairs of success. And it all began with the All-Star race in 2022. And that winning momentum translated into 2023, one of the best seasons of Blaney’s entire NASCAR career. Meanwhile, in a recent video, Blaney opened up on his bond with the Indiana native.
“I think since Jonathan and I started working together in 2022, you just get to know the person,” said the 2023 Cup Series champion. “You get to know each other better off the track and at the race track. Kind of figuring out each other’s likes and dislikes and what I like behind the wheel. I kind of get the feel for what he likes to change, how he calls the race.”
A bond that gets stronger over time.@Blaney and Jonathan Hassler are ready for 2024. pic.twitter.com/BctACRp5U2
— Team Penske (@Team_Penske) December 28, 2023
“So you just build that relationship. The past year and a half has been great and that bond just gets stronger with time, really. As you learn to communicate with each other a little better and know each other’s little tendencies. And I think that’s a positive thing, that’s what you have to have in this job,” he added.
The 2023 season was quite an eventful affair for the #12 Team Penske driver. It brought him a crown jewel triumph in the Coca-Cola 600, a photo-finish over Stewart-Haas Racing legend Kevin Harvick, a grandfather clock at Martinsville Speedway and to top it all off, the championship trophy at Phoenix Raceway.
A season of struggle; Hassler’s hustle with Ryan Blaney
Just a quick rewind to 2022 shows the struggles that the number 12 team went through last year. Despite winning the All-Star race, Blaney ended the season winless in point-paying races and exited the playoff rumble in the round of eight.
Nevertheless, over the winter, Hassler and Blaney minutely went through the areas they needed to improve and came back with one of their strongest series of performances in the 2023 season. “We kind of spent last year learning each other, and we figured out that we could go really fast,” said Hassler. “We had a lot of speed through a lot of different races. I thought we could have won six or seven races last year if we executed, but we didn’t.”
“So, we really went to work in the off-season of finishing the two-thirds point of the race both on my and on his end,” he added. It took eight years for Blaney to get here and two for Hassler as a full-time crew chief in a top-tier NASCAR racing series. The victory, hence, was a sweet affair for both of them.
