Ryan Blaney claims NASCAR Cup Series rival is ‘another level’ after Chicago
Team Penske's Ryan Blaney has lauded Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen as "on another level" following his second road course win of the season
Ryan Blaney may be a NASCAR Cup Series champion, but even he is willing to admit when his competitors are a step above him, as is the case with the road course king, Shane van Gisbergen.
In his first full-time Cup Series season with Trackhouse Racing, the 36-year-old three-time Supercars Championship winner has impressed, improving on ovals whilst absolutely dominating on road courses. Van Gisbergen has now won two of his last four races, in Mexico City and Chicago, with the latter seeing him sweep both the Cup and Xfinity Series, winning both races on the streets in Illinois from pole.
“The only time I watch him is on the TV, cause I don't see him during the race, he’s so far ahead of me,” said Blaney on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio after driving Team Penske’s No. 12 Ford Mustang Dark Horse to 12th at the Grant Park 165.
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However, while some would be frustrated by this utter dominance from an opponent, 31-year-old Blaney is willing to put his hands up and simply admit to admiration. “Honestly, for me, it's not really frustration. It's a lot of admiration,” he said.
“I know how good he is. It's so impressive how good he is, especially at the street courses. I mean, he showed it at Mexico as well, how much of a butt kicking that he put on us there while he was, it was coming out both ends as he was saying to Mexico, and he still put 15 seconds on everybody. So it's just impressive, man.”
Van Gisbergen’s remarkable ability on street courses has seemingly led some fans to ask Blaney why he simply doesn’t look at the data coming from the No. 88 Chevrolet ZL1 and figure out what he needs to copy in order to match his level. But as Blaney explained, it simply isn’t that easy.
“You can't do that. SMTs (Data) as a tool to kind of help see where you're getting beat, at least this is how I've always used SMT,” he explained. “It's hard for me to change my driving style. I can change it a little bit from what is in my bag.
“I can't go drive like Joey Logano, or I can't go drive like Shane on road courses. You can take little things of, ‘Okay, he's, he's beaten me here. I need to work on this corner.’
“And you can kind of look at what's the brake and throttle stuff that he's doing, and all right, you kind of think about that, but I just use it for where do I need to improve? Whether my driving style or where do I got to get my car better? That's like asking Shane, ‘Hey, go drive like Kyle Larson on ovals.' It's easy. It's just so hard to do.”
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Blaney went on to praise van Gisbergen for his “great technique,” claiming the New Zealander is “super precise” and “on another level than everybody, especially at these street courses, just absolutely on another level of how he can manage his car over the bumps and maximize everything and really do it not go on 100 percent.
“I feel like he's out there most of the time going running 90% and it's still a couple of tenths in the bag that he's got, you know? So it's admiration. I mean, you got to respect the hell out of the guy who can, who can be that good at these places.”
Next up for Blaney and van Gisbergen is a trip to Sonoma Raceway, another road course which could suit the Supercars legend to a tee. Thankfully for the likes of Blaney, Logano, and Larson, the Cup Series will then return to ovals for the following three races, travelling to Dover, Indianapolis, and Iowa.
