Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on Penske struggles, concern level for Ryan Blaney

Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts on Team Penske’s issues in the early stages of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt talked about what’s going on with Team Penske and Ryan Blaney.

“I think pit road is such a critical part of being successful. If you’re consistently seeing some issues there, they absolutely should be concerned and there should be some conversations, some hard conversations happening,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “I would say that the speed on the racetrack should allow them to have some confidence going forward. I know that they don’t have the wins, they’re leading all these laps.

“I would be resting on the fact that we’ve got speed. The speed in the cars are there. Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing, let’s not change anything. We may need to do some things different on pit road, we may need to move some people around on our crews, so forth, to try to find some balance. While Blaney may be struggling on pit road, his teammates might not all be struggling.”

Team Penske consists of Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Austin Cindric. The three drivers have yet to win a race, but Earnhardt is not overly concerned since all three drivers have led a lot of laps in multiple races this season. Earnhardt believes this is a good sign for Blaney and Team Penske because it will pay dividends at the end of the year.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t too worried about Ryan Blaney

“Blaney running this well, running this quick early in the season is a good sign for that team,” Earnhardt said. He later added, “If I was a betting man on NASCAR, I would put money on Blaney winning before the end of the regular season.”

Ryan Blaney has had some tough breaks this year which has led to him just missing out on a few wins. After leading in the points standings after the first two races of the year, Blaney had three consecutive DNFs (two engine issues and one crash). But after two consecutive top-five finishes, Blaney and the No. 12 team seem to be heading in the right direction.

“Honestly, a really good weekend by the 12 boys,” Blaney said after the Bristol race last week, per NASCAR.com. “I thought we got better and better from practice, which was good. I didn’t think we were very good yesterday in race trim, so they did a great job of getting us to where we need to be and getting better all day. Like you said, blue-collar day.”