On a day when everything seemed to go against Ryan Blaney, the Team Penske driver made the winning move around Ty Gibbs with 10 to go and held off a hard-charging Christopher Bell to win his second consecutive race at Phoenix Raceway.
Here are four takeaways from the Straight Talk Wireless 500:
Ryan Blaney overcomes adversity for first win of season
Despite multiple loose wheels and slow stops on pit road, Blaney somehow found himself in contention for the race win.
With the help of a two-tire call from crew chief Jonathan Hassler, Blaney leaped ahead of Bell — who led a race-best 176 laps — for the final two restarts. From there, he made quick work of Gibbs and kept Bell in his mirror to win by 0.399 seconds.
Blaney only led 28 laps in the race and had to pass a driver in Gibbs who was searching for his first NASCAR Cup Series win and hold off Bell, who was looking for a third straight win in the Phoenix spring race. It should come as no surprise, though, considering it is his sixth top-two finish at Phoenix in his last eight races.
Tyler Reddick comes up short in bid for historic four-peat
Reddick entered Sunday’s race as the first driver in series history to win the first three races in a season with his Circuit of The Americas triumph one week prior. However, his bid to become the first driver to win a season’s first four races and the first since Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four in a row did not come to fruition.
Although he scored points in both stages, Reddick ultimately settled for eighth and missed out on his chance to make some more history. Still, he holds a 60-point lead over Blaney and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Tire issues plague multiple drivers
When you consider teams were using the same Goodyear tires as the 2025 championship race — one that produced a lot of tire problems — it was not much of a surprise that the same issue was prevalent once again on Sunday.
Kyle Busch and Shane van Gisbergen were the first drivers to encounter tire troubles in Stage 2. Moments later, Chase Briscoe suffered the same fate, only the damage he sustained was too significant to continue and he finished last (37th) in the final running order.
The tire issues continued into the final stage and were a prevailing theme at Phoenix again amid a horsepower increase that made its oval debut this season in a points-paying race. For most drivers, it was certainly a handful behind the wheel and a race that most are likely ready to move past.
Final stage slowed by rash of cautions
While the opening 60-lap stage went caution-free, the next two stages were unable to sustain much of a rhythm, particularly in the last 100 laps.
On the Lap 217 restart, pole sitter Joey Logano tagged the bumper of Ross Chastain, which triggered a multi-car crash and led to huge impacts for Austin Cindric and Anthony Alfredo, who was subbing for Alex Bowman.
With 59 laps remaining, Logano came up into AJ Allmendinger exiting the dog leg portion of the track and sustained heavy damage after additional contact with Josh Berry and Daniel Suarez.
Overall, the 12 cautions were tied for the most in the track’s history as drivers were constantly dealing with adversity all day long.
