Ryan Blaney opened the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with an emphatic victory for Team Penske, which flaunted its speed at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The 2023 Cup champion led 116 laps, including the final 39, to beat Josh Berry by 0.937 seconds for his third victory of the season in the No. 12 Ford.
Blaney, who is trying to reach the Championship 4 season finale for the third consecutive year, became the first driver to advance into one of the eight available spots in the third round of the Cup playoffs.
“I was trying to kind of bide my stuff and kind of pull Josh a little bit, and then he really started coming,” Blaney told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “I started to get super free. And it was all I could do to hold him off and try new lanes. And that was good racing and clean racing. Appreciate Josh for not throwing me the bumper when he could have.
“But what a cool day. What a cool weekend. Super fast car all weekend. So I can’t believe the 12 boys. They’re unbelievable. Really have been strong to start the playoffs and it’s great to get a win in the first race of this round. Oh no, I expect (Berry) to go out and try to win the race, and I knew he wasn’t going to play over for me, but I didn’t think I was going to ever get the bumper, so we raced just super clean, but I would do the same if I was him. You’d go try to win the race so that’s what this thing was all about. It was very stressful, and I’m worn out but overall, what a what a cool weekend and look forward to going to Kansas next week.”
Berry rebounded after being eliminated in the first round with last-place finishes in all three races.
“It was definitely an awesome day,” Berry told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch. “Had a really good car. Hat’s off to Ryan at the end. All of our cars were really strong, and Ryan did a great job there. I was honestly surprised. I was a little worried when he got around me as quick as he did, but it seemed like it leveled out, and I was able to keep him honest at least at the end. We still made the most of it. Hat’s off to everybody at Wood Brothers and Team Penske. This is definitely what we’re capable of, and hopefully we can keep it going.
“I was going to race (Blaney). It’s definitely a tough situation. You’ve got to take care of him. That’s how I try to race, anyway. These restarts and stuff, I try to do the best I can to be smart. It’s tough out there sometimes. I was going to race him hard but clean.”
William Byron finished third, and Joey Logano, Blaney’s Penske teammate, took fourth after leading a race-high 147 of 301 laps in the No. 22 Ford.
“It was a good day overall,” Byron said. “I felt like a lot of the things that we’ve just kind of been building on on the short tracks were working for us. I feel like this place has always been tricky for me in the Cup car. We had a couple of weak runs in stage 1 and started stage 2. Once we kind of got that out of the way, I felt like we were really strong.
“Penske guys were super fast. I felt like they were in another zip code. Other than that, we were really competitive. Just really proud of our team.”
After qualifying in 27th, last among the 12 playoff drivers, Chase Elliott rebounded to finish fifth.
Christopher Bell took sixth as the top finishing driver for Joe Gibbs Racing, which went undefeated in the first round of the playoffs. Bell was followed by Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain as playoff drivers took seven of the top eight spots on the 1.058-mile oval.
The Penske Fords backed up their impressive performances in qualifying Saturday when Logano won the pole position to cap a top-three sweep with Blaney and Berry, whose No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford has a competitive alliance with Penske.
The race turned awkward for Joe Gibbs Racing on Lap 110 when Denny Hamlin spun teammate Ty Gibbs into the Turn 2 wall while racing for 11th. Gibbs, the only JGR driver who failed to qualify for the playoffs, seemed to be impeding the progress of teammates Hamlin and Christopher Bell when the incident happened. “Does Ty know we’re running for a championship?” Hamlin said on his team radio. “What the (expletive) is he doing?”
After the wreck, Hamlin questioned whether the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs was getting preferential treatment. “Are they afraid to talk to him? That’s what I feel like,” Hamlin radioed his team. “They’re just scared of him.”
Ty Gibbs briefly returned to the track before being forced to the garage with damage to his No. 54 Camry. He finished 34th and refused to address the incident or what Hamlin said when asked directly by NBC Sports’ Kim Coon.
“It’s unfortunate, but I’m excited to go race next week and looking forward to it,” said Gibbs, the 2022 Xfinity Series champion who remains winless through 117 starts in Cup.
After dominating the first round with three consecutive victories, Joe Gibbs Racing surprisingly faltered in the first stage at New Hampshire, where the team had won the past three Cup races and six consecutive stages.
But the team failed to earn any points in the first stage Sunday as Hamlin, Bell and Chase Briscoe finished outside the top 10 in the 70-lap segment.
Stage 1 winner: Blaney
Stage 2 winner: Logano
Next: Sunday, Sept. 28, 3 p.m. ET at Kansas Speedway on USA
