After months of underperformance, Ryan Blaney, Team Penske, and Ford finally managed to break Toyota's dominance and stand on the top of the podium, as the No. 12 driver won at Atlanta.

Speaking about his race, the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart, Blaney praised his car for the win as he hailed the Ford Mustang Dark Horse as a "rocket ship" on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

"Just an ideal weekend. Weekends that you don't really get was sitting on the pole and winning both stages, winning the race. Like that's a, that's a dream weekend right there. So just fortunate that, you know, we brought a really fast car. I appreciate everybody at Team Penske, the 12 group Ford, for bringing a fast car and then not only a fast car in qualifying, but raced very well too."

Blaney had a dominant weekend at Atlanta on Sunday, as the Team Penske man won the pole, both Stage 1 and Stage 2, and finally claimed the victory.

With this, he secured his second win of this season. His first win came at Phoenix in March. Since then, Blaney was on the podium just twice, and had just eight top-10 finishes in seventeen races. That's why when he had the opportunity at Atlanta, he made the most of it.

"My car was best in the lead in the front of the pack, I could kind of manage the race pretty well. I can manage lanes fairly decent. Sometimes there's only so much you can do. Sometimes you can't manage both lanes, you just kind of have to let things happen. And then just try to fight back. But yeah, car was fantastic. Just props to the 12 group for bringing a rocket ship," Blaney further added.

Blaney led a total of 171 laps, a staggering feat at a drafting track. The last time someone had such dominance was Richard Petty back in the 1964 Daytona 500, where he led 184 out of 200 laps.

Shockingly, his two victories this season are the only wins Ford has achieved so far.

Ryan Blaney's teammate scrapped for points at Atlanta

While Ryan Blaney not just won the race, but dominated, his teammate, Joey Logano, battled for important points to stay alive in the Chase berth contention. Having finished the race in ninth place, here's what Logano told the media after the race.

"That was a battle. We got some good stage points and then a top 10, so we got the points we need, which is very crucial right now, especially when you come to a track like this because you just don’t know what’s gonna happen. I wish I had something to go win with, but once we got back there I couldn’t get back to the front. That’s about as good as I could have done there.” (as quoted by NBCSports.com)

Logano started the race from second place, behind his teammate, Blaney. He fell to fourth and third in Stage 1 and Stage 2, respectively, but in the end, managed to grab ninth place.

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar