Ryan Blaney entered Talladega knowing he needed a strong result to keep his championship hopes alive. After a runner-up finish at Phoenix, the Team Penske driver was fifth in the Chase standings, 40 points behind Kyle Larson. But the YellaWood 500 delivered a devastating setback. Blaney was caught in the Lap 132 pileup, finished 38th, and fell to sixth in the standings, now 107 points behind Larson with only two races remaining. With his title hopes hanging by a thread, Blaney also had a message for Joey Logano, refusing to pin the blame for the wreck on his teammate.

“It wasn’t his fault. I mean, we were both trying to protect it. It’s just both of us didn’t time it very good, and unfortunately wrecked folks. Yeah, I feel like I had a hand in kind of being aggressive there. But shame guys got tore up,” Ryan Blaney said in an interview as he refused to throw Joey Logano under the bus after Team Penske’s Talladega nightmare.

The two teammates were battling hard in the closing laps of Stage 2 when their efforts to protect track position helped trigger a massive pileup. The trouble unfolded on Lap 132, with Blaney and Logano working together near the front of a tightly packed field.

The Penske teammates were trying to control the second and third lanes, protecting their positions while navigating the constant movement of the superspeedway draft. Blaney pushed Logano, causing the No. 22 Ford to get loose.

Blaney then had to check up, leaving Bubba Wallace, who was leading the third lane, with little time to react. Wallace made contact, and the resulting chain reaction swept multiple cars into the wreck.

The crash collected several championship contenders, including Blaney, Wallace, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Ty Gibbs. Daniel Suárez and Ryan Preece were also caught up in the incident. Blaney’s No. 12 Ford suffered too much damage to continue competitively, and the team eventually settled for 38th after attempting repairs. Reddick and Elliott were also done for the day, while Hamlin managed to return and finish eighth with a battered Toyota.

Blaney could easily have pointed fingers at Logano’s move, but his assessment was more measured. Both drivers were trying to defend their lanes, and neither timed the move correctly. His admission carried weight because the wreck did not just end his afternoon.

Instead, it damaged the championship chances of several drivers. Larson, meanwhile, converted a race that had repeatedly denied him a victory into his first Talladega win, extending his advantage to 73 points over Hamlin.

Blaney did not pretend the situation was anything other than dire. Asked by another reporter about his championship chances, he admitted: “It’s on life support. That’s for sure, but you never know. It definitely doesn’t help. That’s something we couldn’t afford to have today and unfortunately it happened, so we’ll just have to go show up next week and try to do the best we can.”

There is still a mathematical path, but Blaney needs an extraordinary turnaround. With two races left, a driver can score up to 152 points across both events, meaning Blaney needs Larson to suffer major setbacks (no stage or race-end points whatsoever) while the No. 12 team produces near-perfect results (in stages as well as the end of the race). A strong run at Martinsville is essential, followed by another big result at Homestead-Miami.

Martinsville could offer a glimmer of hope. Blaney has won two of the last three fall races there (in 2023 and 2024), giving Team Penske a track where it has recently been successful. But he cannot afford another incident or a mediocre finish. Larson has already shown he can capitalize when rivals stumble, and Talladega handed him the kind of cushion that changes the entire complexion of a title fight.

For Blaney, the immediate task is to regroup rather than dwell on blame. His comments cleared Logano of sole responsibility, but they could not undo the damage. Two races remain, and the No. 12 team needs a near-perfect finish to its season to keep its championship hopes alive.