Ryan Blaney is confident Ford caught up to Toyota in the manufacturer battle headed into the 2026 NASCAR Chase.
The evidence is there to back him up.
Blaney, in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford, won two of the last seven races in the regular season, and Fords overall won five of the last seven, including the last three.
Compare that to the start of the season when Toyota, with Tyler Reddick and 23XI Racing on a historic heater, won five of the first nine races.
"I think we're in a good spot," Blaney said. "Maybe we weren't where we wanted to be early in the year, but we put a lot of work in, whether it was in our camp or just the Ford
camp in general on, 'How can we be better and what areas can we be better in and what do we need to work on to achieve that goal?'"
Unlike in 2025, when everything that could have gone wrong for Blaney seemed to go wrong, he was actually strong throughout 2026. He drove the first non-Toyota to victory on March 8 at Phoenix, continued to run well and earned the No. 2 seed for the Chase, which begins on Sept. 6 at Darlington (4 p.m. CT, USA Network).
He says there was not one specific issue Ford identified to catch up to Toyota, but a series of things.
"It just came down to people communicating," Blaney said. "Working hard, just putting their head down, whether it was at Team Penske or Ford Racing. I give huge props to those folks who continue to do the best job that they can. I think we're zoning in on it and hopefully we can continue to improve for the last 10 weeks."
How Ford caught Toyota in the 2026 NASCAR season
Blaney said he was legitimately worried about Ford's performance early in the season.
The best Ford to finish at Atlanta on Feb. 22 was Zane Smith at seventh, and Blaney was the best at Circuit of The Americas at eighth on March 1.
There seemed to be issues for Ford in particular on the intermediate tracks, including Kansas, Las Vegas and Texas, where only two Fords finished in the top 10 at each race.
"Overall speed and pace is where I've seen the most improvement," Blaney said. "Especially at some of the tracks where we really struggled. I thought early in the year at the mile-and-a-half (tracks), the Fords were pretty far off across the board. That was a big point of emphasis to get better at that. I think we've done a couple of things different, just how we bring the cars to the racetrack setup-wise, that has made a difference and impacted it."
Ryan Blaney calls NASCAR a 'circle of performance'
Blaney said Toyota's early domination, which forced Ford and Chevrolet to play catch-up, is not new to NASCAR.
"Motorsports to me and NASCAR racing is just a big circle of performance," Blaney said. "You have teams and manufacturers that are kicking everyone's butt for a little bit, and they've got it going on. Then other teams catch up and they find a little bit more. It's just this big circle, so you try to get around that circle as quick as you can if you're not at the top of it. That's just how it's always been."
Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on X @MikeOrganWriter.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ryan Blaney says Ford caught up to Toyota before the NASCAR Chase. Here's the proof
