AVONDALE, Ariz. – One of the hottest drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series has some work ahead of him in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race if he wants to earn his first driver’s championship.
After pacing the Championship 4 drivers on Friday during the series’ 50-minute practice session with the third fastest practice time Friday afternoon, Blaney could only deliver the 15th quickest lap with his No. 12 Menards | Dutch Boy Ford Mustang during time trials, last among the Championship 4 drivers.
While Championship 4 rival Christopher Bell is only two positions ahead in 13th, the other two Championship 4 contenders, William Byron and Kyle Larson, will start inside the top five, with Bryon leading the Hendrick Motorsports duo with the pole and Larson, the 2021 Cup Series champion, nestled in third.
Blaney, however, isn’t hitting the panic button yet, though he knows there is work to be done, and he has 312 laps, barring no NASCAR overtime to get the job done.
“I thought we were pretty competitive yesterday in practice,” Blaney explained. “Yeah, just lacked the pace today in qualifying. Qualifying has been somewhere we’ve struggled at here the last little bit. We seem to race really good, but qualifying we can’t find the grip and speed that other groups can. Whatever that is, we tried everything to try to get that better.”
Blaney is right. His qualifying efforts have not been his strong suit in 2024. The High Point, N.C. native hasn’t qualified inside the top five since qualifying fourth at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway in September.
He has just three top-10 qualifying in the Playoffs altogether – including a 10th last month at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
And last weekend, he qualified 11th at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway and climbed through the field to score his third win of the season.
“It’s hard if you don’t qualify in the top 10,” added Blaney. “I think we snuck in at Homestead at 10th, but we’ve been outside the top 10 in Vegas, Martinsville. Was able to drive our forward. Hopefully, we have that race pace tomorrow. It’s nice the Championship 4 folks, pit stalls are the top four where we have a halfway decent one.
“We have our work cut out for us tomorrow. Hopefully, our car can drive through it. Long race, we can get there.”
Although Blaney expected to be starting better in his first Championship 4 appearance, he remains optimistic that he can duplicate his late-race performance from Martinsville, where he started outside the top-10 and rallied to his second win in the 2023 Cup Series Playoffs.
“I didn’t expect to qualify where we did. I expected to be a little bit better,” admitted Blaney. “I know qualifying hasn’t really been our strong point this year really at all. I mean, I don’t have any poles this year, where we had four last year. It’s just a place we struggled at with the single-lap speed.
“Pretty optimistic that we can get our way through the field tomorrow. Yeah, bummed, but I’m not really letting it dwell on me. We came from 15th in the last restart at Martinsville and won the race. Hopefully, we can carry that over to race pace. Seems to be our best quality right now, once we get into the run.”
While his starting position isn’t ideal for such a critical race, Blaney said he would much rather have pace for race laps on Sunday than just one solo lap on Saturday in qualifying.
He believes because his No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang team has been able to showcase it time and time throughout the 36-race season – the team will be able to move forward once the green flag drops, and that gives him confidence for the most important race of his career.
“If I had to choose one, it would obviously be pace in the race instead of having one lap speed in qualifying,” sounded Blaney. “We’ve been kind of on both ends of it. Teams will be on both ends of it at certain points of the year.
“Yeah, it does give me more confidence. It makes me not worry as much about where we qualified. We have qualified bad before here in the Playoffs and we have been able to race our way forward. Hopefully, that’s still the case tomorrow. Hopefully, we bring that same speed in the race.
“But, yeah, it definitely is something, our group wasn’t really stressed out at all after qualifying. You just understand it’s a long race tomorrow. Hopefully with the changes we made from last night for the race tomorrow is going to pay off and we went in the right direction. If not, we’ll try to get in the right direction.
“I think our group’s in a good stuff. Hopefully, we’re good tomorrow.”
Last November, Blaney’s teammate Joey Logano executed his second Cup Series driver’s championship but started on the pole. Since Phoenix Raceway has hosted the Championship 4 race in 2020, the winner and the champion have started from the pole position.
A statistic Blaney would be okay with breaking on November 5.
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) at @Knighter01 or email: [email protected]
