NASCAR News: Ryan Blaney wins the pole for Cup race at Atlanta

Ryan Blaney won his first pole position of the season – 11th of his career – Saturday morning at Atlanta Motor Speedway – his two Team Penske teammates, Austin Cindric and Joey Logano also earning front-of-the-field starts for Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400.

The Penske team – whose three cars combined to lead the most laps in the season-opening DAYTONA 500 a week ago – will take the field to green on the 1.5-mile Atlanta high banks.

Blaney’s lap of 179.371 mph in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford was a slight .002-second faster than Cindric and only .040-second quicker than Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry, in a Penske-affiliated Ford Mustang himself.

“It’s a big testament to our whole group, Team Penske and Wood Brothers to be the top four,” the 31-year old 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney said.

“It just shows you how similar all our cars are being right there together so hope it translates to the race tomorrow in handling and we’ll find out,” he added. “Pretty cool day.”

Fords clearly dominated the qualifying session earning 10 of the first 11 positions on the grid. Logano was fourth fastest, followed by Front Row Motorsport’s Todd Gilliland – one of three FRM cars to advance to the 10-car final qualifying round. His teammates Zane Smith and Noah Gragson were seventh and 10th fastest.

The lone Chevrolet among the top positions was Kyle Busch, whose No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Camaro will roll off sixth. He was runner-up to Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez in the closest three-wide finish in series history last year at Atlanta. Suarez will roll off 29th in the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. Blaney was the third driver in that historic trio.

There were only two Toyotas to crack the top-20 in Saturday’s time trials – 23XI Racing teammates Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick, who will start 14th and 18th respectively. The perennial championship-favorite Joe Gibbs Racing team did not fare too well with Chase Briscoe 25th, Christopher Bell 32nd, Ty Gibbs 36th and Denny Hamlin 37th on the 39-car grid.

Despite his promising showing Saturday, Blaney conceded this style of small superspeedway-type racing at Atlanta creates a lot of drama similar to the bigger drafting tracks like Daytona and Talladega, Ala. Meaning anything is possible no matter the grid outlook.

“That’s the start and hopefully it stays that way, but things are going to change during the race,” Blaney acknowledged, “But it’s kind of nice that at least the start of the race through the first stage you can control. It’s not going to be that way the whole race. You’re going to get shuffled at some point and strategy is going to come into play so it’s how do you react to that. But it’s nice to all start together.”

Blaney said there is always a lot of discussion among his team about how to keep the cars together, up front and out of danger.

“Fast cars and teamwork like that is the reason you see all of us leading a bunch of laps and contending for these wins, so it’s nice to be around each other at first but I’d like it to be like that at the end,” he said smiling.

NOTEBOOK:

*Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe conceded he’s been through a range of emotions in the last week after winning his first ever DAYTONA 500 pole position then his No. 19 team was penalized after further inspection last week. In technical inspection back in Charlotte after the race, NASCAR officials found a problem with the Toyota’s spoiler showed an illegal “modification of a single source supplied part.”

The penalty was a four-race suspension for Chase’s crew chief James Small, the loss of 100 driver and owner points and a $100,000 fine. The team is appealing the penalty, but NASCAR has not yet announced when it will hold the hearing.

Briscoe remembers getting the call that the penalty announcement was forthcoming. But he remained optimistic that once NASCAR hears the team’s case, it may be rescinded or at least, adjusted.

“If you don’t win the appeal, you’ve kind of used up your mulligans, you kind of have three or four times when you can have a DNF in the season and still make the Playoffs,” Briscoe said. “If we don’t win the appeal, I’ve already used those up and I won’t have any weekends I can do badly [in the race].

“I still have to win. If you want to be a championship contender you have to win a race anyway to get into the Playoffs and hopefully that’s what we can do.”

“I already feel like there’s a lot of pressure this year anyway, but certainly if my back’s up against the wall I don’t hate that feeling,” he continued. “I feel like I do better almost in those situations a lot of times. Hopefully we win the appeal, but if not, we’re just going to try to go win races.”

*Austin Cindric’s first career NASCAR Cup Series win came in the most dramatic and historic ways – a victory in the 2022 Daytona 500. Last week the driver of the Team Penske’s No. 2 Ford was again at the front of the field in the Daytona. He’s led laps in six of his eight starts on the big track. And Cindric’s 59 laps led last week was the most of any driver, yet he was collected in an accident in the closing laps and rallied to an eighth place.

This weekend’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway is considered a smaller drafting track but still along the lines of Daytona and the 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. And Cindric’s performance on these kind of tracks was publicly praised this week by fellow competitor, three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin – a pat-on-the-back not so common in the sport.

“For me, it is a very high compliment,” Cindric said. “It is not often times you get to earn the respect but also hear the level of respect your competitors have for you. As superspeedway racing goes, Denny has been one of the best for the last couple of decades. For him to have a high opinion like that is pretty cool. I think that is what made the end of the race significant and special to me.”

Cindric said his work – and success on the big track – is something he takes pride in. And he answered his good work at Daytona with a front row qualifying spot for Sunday’s race at Atlanta.

“Anything you work hard at, you certainly want to see the progress whether it is from your competitors, from within yourself or from your own team,” Cindric said. “I can remember the first two Truck races I did on superspeedways. I hated it! I hated it because I didn’t understand it. When we did the first race here, after they re-paved it, I hated it. But that is because I didn’t understand it.

“Now I feel like I look forward to it. That is a huge evolution. That is not just allowing it to happen and understanding that you have to get better to enjoy it. I only have fun if I am out there trying to be successful. If there is an impact on others out there around me, either positive or negative, so be it, but it is a challenging thing to make progress at a level this high.”

*A fan favorite everywhere he goes, Dawsonville, Ga.-native Chase Elliott is especially beloved racing at his home state track in Atlanta. And he’s happy to be back at it on the superspeedway-style 1.5-mile track whose high banks and configuration create a similar style of competition to the bigger tracks at Daytona and Talladega.

Elliott finished 15th last weekend in the DAYTONA 500, leading two laps, even though his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was collected in one of the multi-car accidents. And although that was frustrating because he had a solid and encouraging race week otherwise, Elliott says it’s simply best to accept and embrace the kind of driving style and competition necessary at the big tracks.

“I don’t necessarily know that it’s my favorite style of racing to participate in, but it is definitely a style of racing that you really have to learn to at least accept and try and learn how to get better at, and really just understand that there’s not just two or three on the schedule anymore,” Elliott said.

“When you look at the schedule, you have two Atlanta’s, two Daytona’s, two Talladega’s, right? When you come to that conclusion, it’s like — well we better really try and race this, improve and figure out a way to make these races count for the better because, if not, you’re just throwing too much of the season away. So, I think that, historically, you could kind of get away with not worrying about the speedway races with where they fell on the calendar and the fact there wasn’t as many of them. But I don’t really think that’s the case anymore.”

*It was a week of praise and celebration for last week’s DAYTONA 500 winner, Hendrick Motorsports William Byron. After becoming only the fifth driver in the race’s 67-year history to win back-to-back 500s, Byron was whisked off on a nationwide media tour that included stops in New York City, at The Weather Channel, a WWE event and the opportunity to turn donuts in his Chevrolet in the outfield of the Atlanta Braves Truist Park stadium leading into this week’s race.

“Yeah, that was pretty fun,” Byron smiled of the Braves’ burnouts.

“Yeah, I mean I got to do a lot more than I feel like last year, especially with the circumstances of last year’s race being on a Monday. So for us, Monday Night RAW was a really fun, unique, experience. I had never been to a wrestling match, so I really enjoyed that, honestly. And then obviously going to New York and then we were here yesterday doing a bunch of stuff with the Braves, the Weather Channel and CNN. It was cool. It’s been a crazy week, but that’s what you want. You don’t think about all that stuff when you’re trying to win the race. I think it’s cool that we won. It’s cool that we got the chance to really go and do some fun stuff.”

*Joey Logano’s start at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday will give him the new longest consecutive start streak in the NASCAR Cup Series, with the previous holder of that mark, Martin Truex Jr. ending his own at 685 straight starts – sixth on the all-time list.

Truex, the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion, retired from full-time competition at the end of 2024, but started last week’s season-opening DAYTONA 500. His mark began with the 2006 DAYTONA 500.

“It’s obviously a long way to go to catch those guys, but it’s kind of cool it’s happening at Atlanta because I grew up racing Legends cars here,” said Logano, who will make his 578th start and remembers parking his Legends Series car outside Atlanta’s media center as a kid hoping to race in the NASCAR Cup Series one day.

“That was the dream and now pretty cool to see that come full circle here in Atlanta.”

Logano’s former Penske teammate, Brad Keselowski, now an owner driver with Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing is next behind Logano at 546 consecutive starts.

Qualifying Results