NASCAR CUP SERIES: BANK OF AMERICA 400

October 11, 2026

Ryan Blaney

Pit Lane Interview

Q. Ryan Blaney with a late surge to finish third here, overcoming a speeding penalty and a little bit of a clunky spot by the pit crew early in the race. Do you feel like you reached the potential you saw today at Charlotte?

RYAN BLANEY: I thought so. I thought they did a great job for getting our car better. Even from the first run before I had my speeding penalty we kind of dropped hard at the end of the first run and were able to drive back from the back and get the 10th before the stage ended and then, yeah, kind of settled in the top 5 after that, top 3.

You know, I just didn't feel like I had the pace to hang with the 20 or the 19 early in runs. They could kind of get out there and I would start to close the gap, but it just wasn't enough to make up for the early-run pace they had.

Overall, really proud of our day after my mistake, like I said, and really proud of the last three weeks, the places we've really needed to get better at, the mile-and-a-halfs, we've been able to do that. Three solid finishes. Sticking in there. Just got to keep going to work.

Q. Your crew chief Jonathan Hassler told me he feels like you can win the next three. Are you as optimistic as he is about it?

RYAN BLANEY: Yeah, myself and I think this whole group, they go into every weekend thinking we can win, just having confidence in yourself. And this group has been awesome to work with. I love my guys. But Phoenix has been good to us in the past. I don't know what's going to happen at Talladega. No one does. But then we've got Martinsville and Miami.

The best thing we can do is one race at a time, just try to go do our job the best that we can, and hopefully if we can do that we can find Victory Lane a couple more times. But I appreciate Discount Tire, Ford Racing, Menards for everything that they do, and looking forward to next week.