Amid the fallout from Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs’ run-in at New Hampshire, Ryan Blaney offered a pointed contrast, noting that Team Penske drivers race one another with respect. He reminded fans that even last year at Phoenix, when he and Joey Logano went head-to-head for the title, Logano claimed the championship and Blaney finished second without either resorting to wrecks, bumps, or shortcuts, just clean racing.
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In fact, at Loudon, Blaney found himself dueling Josh Berry, whose Wood Brothers team maintains a technical alliance with Penske. The pair battled hard in the final laps but kept it clean, avoiding any hint of controversy. The same couldn’t be said of JGR teammates Hamlin and Gibbs. Blaney touched on the difference, without directly targeting the drivers or the team, during his appearance on The Dale Jr. Download.
“I think our team all the Team Penske and the Wood brothers we work better than anybody else together like any other team I feel like our communication line from the drivers engineers crew chiefs is 10 times better than everybody else and I just speak on that just because I don’t I got buddies in other teams and we kind of compare and it’s like well like we do a little bit more.”
“But a great example is Joey and I raced for the championship last year at Phoenix. Same comp meetings, same discussions. How are we both going to be better? Like nothing changed. That’s your competition, but we’re trying to figure out how do we run one two in this deal. Roger doesn’t care who runs first or second. He just wants to run first and second. And that’s just how it’s always been.”
Blaney explained that if three Penske cars are in contention, the expectation from their boss, Roger Penske, is clear: finish one-two-three if possible, but without wrecking or skirmishing with each other. That’s the standard Roger Penske sets. He added that racing among teammates is always intense, with no team orders in place, only one ironclad rule: don’t wreck each other.
