Kevin Harvick Reignites Ryan Blaney’s Championship Defense Dreams With A Firm 2-Word Verdict

Ryan Blaney entered the 2024 NASCAR Cup season as the defending champion. However, his title defense didn’t get off to the best start. For the first 12 races, the 2024 campaign was the Chevrolet and Toyota show, with the two manufacturers splitting wins. It wasn’t until Brad Keselowski at the Darlington Raceway that Ford finally opened their account.

Yet, there was still no peep from teams like Stewart-Haas Racing or Team Penske. The Penske organization finally got on the scoreboard, thanks to Austin Cindric at the World Wide Technology Raceway. At last, Blaney finally opened his account with a Cup win at the Iowa Speedway.

What makes this win even more special is the fact that he is the first Cup driver to win at Iowa. Safe to say, no one can take that statistic away from him. Recently, fellow former Ford driver Kevin Harvick opened up about Ryan Blaney and his delayed title defense.

Kevin Harvick has some faith in Ryan Blaney to bounce back

In a recent conversation, the 2014 champion broke down Blaney’s performance so far. He told Kaitlyn Vincie and Mamba Smith on the Harvick Happy Hour Podcast, “Here’s the deal with those guys. I think that their short track stuff, I think is okay. St. Louis was good, Loudon was good, both places that you’re shifting. Iowa, that was kind of one of those scenarios, but they were good at all three races.”

Adding to his verdict, he said, “The problem that they have, are the mile and a halves, that’s the problem. Can they get the mile and a halves fixed to the point that they can be competitive and run in the Top 5. I like the speed, like the speed in the #12 car, I think that they’re back better than they were at the beginning of the year, being in the conversation. I got to see them do more on the mile and a half race tracks.”

In a way, he does have a point, because Blaney’s and Cindric’s wins came at short tracks. Meanwhile, Joey Logano won the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, which is yet another short track. Even at New Hampshire, the team struggled with neither driver finishing in the Top 15. Owing to that, Harvick believes that there is still some work to be done at the Team Penske garage.

The fact that it took that long for Ryan Blaney to win a race as a defending champion, isn’t a good thing. It could be argued that there was an overall Ford issue that didn’t see them hit the ground running immediately. However, Team Penske failed to be the first Ford team to get the win, and that honor went to RFK Racing.

Despite all this, Harvick truly believes that the Penske boys are well and truly back in the hunt. They may have gotten off to a juddering start, but now that they have wins under their belt, the momentum is building. If the Penske trio can carry it forward into the coming race weekend, it will go a long way, especially for Blaney.

The #12 driver has been steadily improving his form this season

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This weekend, the Cup Series paddock heads to the Nashville Superspeedway. Blaney doesn’t exactly have the best record at the track, having never won. However, his best finish at the superspeedway was 3rd place in the 2022 season. As a result, there is an off chance that he can be a dark horse.

Currently, the NASCAR champion is in the running for the 2024 ESPY award. However, he will face stern competition from the likes of F1 star Max Verstappen, as well as NHRA’s Matt Hagan and IndyCar’s Alex Palou. This will be a tough competition, especially with Verstappen’s unicorn of a 2023 season giving him a slight leg up on the others.

For now, Ryan Blaney is probably going to focus on the 2024 campaign. Sure the award would look good on a mantelpiece if he won, but the real prize is the Cup Series title. That title defense now moves to Nashville as he prepares to prove Harvick’s words as prophetic.