Ryan Blaney clearly understands what Team Penske teammate Joey Logano feels when people consider drivers who’ve won the NASCAR Cup championship under the current playoff format as being “illegitimate.”
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Logano has won the Cup crown three times—2018, 2022, and last season—while Blaney won the Cup title in 2023, meaning that Team Penske has won the Cup championship the previous three years running, and is in the running to make it four in a row this year, as well. Still, critics question whether the current playoff format and the eventual champion’s legitimacy..
“That word legitimate gets tossed around a lot, and it kind of pisses me off a little bit,” Blaney said during media availability Saturday at Kansas Speedway for Sunday’s Cup playoff race. “People think that the guys who have won in this format aren’t legit champions.
“Everyone has the same shot to win. That’s just the outside world’s perspective [whether the current format is legitimate compared to the old system, where the driver with the most points won the championship].
“It’s hard to win no matter what format it is. But everyone always has their opinions and things like that, and it’s just what it is. Nothing you can do about that. But no, I don’t think no matter what champion is in what format, 36 race, original Chase, this format—they’re all deserving of winning it because everyone has the same shot and it’s extremely hard to do. So, I don’t think I agree with people who say that. We don’t race that format, so I don’t care about that. I care about how we get to [the Cup championship race at] Phoenix.”
Blaney, who won last Sunday’s race at New Hampshire to give him an automatic berth into the Round of 8, the Cup semifinals, doesn’t have any particular favorite when it comes to the playoff format.
“Honestly, to me, it doesn’t matter either way to me,” Blaney said. “Whether it’s this, 36 races, the original Chase, we race to the format. And we’re going to make the most out of any format that we’re given. I’ve gotten that question a lot, right? That’s a big topic of discussion, and I’m good either way. Like, if they want to switch it up, cool. And we’ll go see what we can do in that one (format). So we’ll see what (NASCAR) ends up doing. But I’m honestly open to whatever and open to the challenge from whatever format comes.”
With format changes looming on the horizon, many in the fraternity push for the same; it remains to be seen if NASCAR can strike a balance between what is often deemed as the ‘pure’ championship format and the new-age playoff system.
