NASCAR insiders react to Ryan Blaney first 2025 win, break down deciding factor at Nashville

Ryan Blaney finally broke the glass, winning his first race of 2025 at Nashville this past weekend. He’s come close numerous times this season, but the Team Penske wheelman finished the job and received a guitar for his victory when the dust settled on the track.

Afterwards, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic broke it all down. When looking at Blaney’s win, Gluck believes a key call from crew chief Jonathan Hassler is what separated him from the pack in Tennessee.

“He wins, and you could see this coming. I don’t think it’s any surprise whatsoever that Ryan Blaney went to Victory Lane. We’ve talked about him as a championship contender, but he finally finishes one off,” Gluck stated, via The Teardown. “This was set up by Jonathan Hassler’s pit call at the end of Stage One. He realized that there was going to be a need for track-position, and he noticed the tires weren’t wearing as much, and the lap times weren’t going down.

“So, he saw everybody pit in Stage One, and that was when Blaney ran pretty long. Blaney was running similar lap times to the leaders at that point. Even the guys who had pitted on brand new tires, Blaney was still running similar lap times. He got to the end of that window, and I think he ended up pitting with like, 20 laps to go or something in that stage. Then, at the stage break, they were able to take two tires.

“Next thing you know, he gets a ton of track-position, and he only has 20 lap older left-side tires than the rest of the drivers who just come in on the stage break. So, that set him up, and then he had a great car to top it off. As it was hard to pass tonight, that was a really key moment there for Blaney.”

The call was certainly important to Blaney getting the win in Nashville. Bianchi echoed Gluck’s sentiment, believing the former champion’s ability o weave through traffic was something to behold, as well.

“To me, there’s two things there,” Bianchi responded. “You mentioned one of them was Hassler playing the long game, looking at the tire wear and being like, ‘How do we get our driver up and through this order when we don’t have the fastest car at that time, or it’s a little hard to pass.’ He did a really good job of that.

“Two, I don’t think we give Blaney enough credit for how good of a driver he is on long runs. You look at most of his wins, go back to Martinsville last fall. Go back, you know, look at tonight — they’re consistent, steady, fast times over a 30-plus lap run. He’s not great on short runs. Restarts are usually his bugaboo, right? It cost him a couple of times this year, at Darlington most notably. It’s just not his strong suit. But over a long green flag run? If you give him track position and let him just click off laps, he’s as good as it gets.

“That was the thing we saw. Hassler played the strategy game really, really. He looked at tire wear, assessed the situation and said, ‘What do I need to get my driver up through the order?’ He did that. And then from there, the way things fell just was really clinical. Blaney, we saw at the end of Stage Two, was able to run people down. Even when he got into traffic, it’s like he just maintained composure and never kind of struggled.”

Moving forward, there’s a couple more tracks that fit right into Ryan Blaney’s wheelhouse, beginning with Michigan this weekend. We’ll see if he can go on a little run and click off some wins after his first victory of the season in Nashville.