When Ryan Blaney won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier this year, little did he know that it was a sign of his winning the championship trophy. While talking about the probable contenders in the Championship 4 this year, the NASCAR pundits never imagined Blaney to be in the conversation. But after Sunday’s performance in the 1-mile oval in Arizona, that narrative just vanished.

Ryan Blaney won the Cup Series title in his very first Championship 4 appearance. Roger Penske couldn’t have been happier. After all, big-shot teams like Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports lacked their usual luster in front of the No. 12 driver. However, Penske felt like his team had a long way to go. And while saying so, it seemed like he subtly flexed his back-to-back win on Mr. H.

Roger Penske sets his good friend as an example

The in-car cameras caught Ryan Blaney shedding tears of joy and crying out in utter joy. Moments later, he was in his boss’s arms. As the boss patted him on the back, the motorsport enthusiasts looked on with eyes full of content.

This was the second straight year of Team Penske winning the title after Joey Logano’s 2022 titular victory. The 86-year-old Roger Penske was elated to win the Indianapolis 500 at the hands of Josef Newgarden and the Cup Series Championship through the hands of Ryan Blaney, both in the same year. However, he didn’t seem too satisfied after winning his team’s fourth championship title, as he demanded more.

Although he admitted that his team was in its best form in 2023, Penske said, “My great friend Rick Hendrick, I think he has 15 to 16 (championships). We’re excited to have four. Long way to go.” However, he showered praise on his team, especially how they rebounded from a not-so-strong midseason.

“Back-to-back shows the strength of our organization,” said Roger Penske, “We really weren’t that strong in the middle part of the season. As Jonathan and the engineering team, along with Ford, helped us get better and better, you could see how well the Fords ran even here today, I think it was a combination of many things. For me, personally, that is what we’re here for. We love the competition, we love the stress, but also we like a day to sit down here like this and say we are champions,” he added proudly, as reported by racingamerica.com.

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Nevertheless, Ryan Blaney seemed to be a little frustrated at other drivers, including HMS star Kyle Larson and Trackhouse Racing icon Ross Chastain, in the end. The in-car camera caught Blaney driving just with one hand in frustration. Bringing him back from that mental state and keeping him focused in the race was indeed the credit of Blaney’s crew chief.

Jonathan Hassler spills out the turning point in the Pennzoil team’s 2023 journey

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With the advent of next-gen cars, every strategy is kind of a hit or a miss. The teams spend countless hours behind the garage coming up with strategies to dominate in the extremely leveled-up field of NASCAR. The case was no different for the #12 Team Penske team.

During a post-race interview with Parker Kligerman, crew chief Jonathan Hassler said, “It’s a huge testament to the organization and this 12 team of working hard day in and day out and never being afraid of to be able to be a little bit better.” Having said that, they put the hardest work into the tracks while the driver revs his engine.

One cannot just lose focus while driving a stock car. Speaking of how he controlled Ryan Blaney when he was about to go berserk, Hassler said, “It was a tough position obviously, you can say you’re trying to look at the big picture and he can maybe, settle in and ride there a little bit but the truth is we might get a pit stop again later, we might need a couple of spots of cushion with the pit stall that the 24 had. I was happy that he was racing as hard as he was.”

Kligerman was curious about how this team found winning momentum in just the last few weeks since Blaney won at Talladega Superspeedway. Hassler admitted that it was not just one thing. “Going through all the details making a lot of small decisions that add up in the end,” he said. “Ever since we won at Charlotte, we were able to kind of try some different things and some worked and some didn’t.”

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And with that, NASCAR crowns a second-place finisher as the seasonal champion for the first time since 2014, when it brought about the current playoff format.