For much of the 2026 Cup Series season, it looked like the championship battle would come down to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick. The duo has combined for nine wins and has occupied the top two spots in the standings for most of the year. But drivers behind them, like Ryan Blaney, never gave up despite some underwhelming results. Now, after the Team Penske driver won at Atlanta on Sunday, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi believe the championship fight is no longer just a two-man race.

On The Teardown podcast, Gluck and Bianchi discussed Blaney’s thrilling win at the Quaker State 400 on Sunday, which took the 32-year-old to just 65 points behind Hamlin, who currently leads the standings. Gluck even noted that Blaney was not aware of how much the gap had gone down.

“I think we both agree, like, I think we give the advantage to Hamlin in this situation, and then Reddick is obviously there, and Toyota obviously has superiority, and we know all the issues that Ford has had this year. That said, I do think we have to start giving Ryan Blaney serious consideration to winning this championship,” Bianchi stated on The Teardown podcast.

The Toyotas have dominated 2026, yes. They’ve won 11 races so far, and have a clear advantage over Ford in particular, who have won just twice, both thanks to Blaney. But Bianchi feels that out of the six races remaining before the playoffs, barring Indianapolis, Blaney has a great chance to further close down on Hamlin and Reddick.

“But we’ve got North Wilkesboro next week, we’ve got Iowa, we have New Hampshire, we have Richmond, and then we have Daytona. Those are all tracks where Toyota’s superiority should be negated a little bit, and those are tracks where Blaney has ran well the last few years, and Ford has been able to hang on there, particularly New Hampshire, particularly Daytona,” he continued.

“I’m not saying that Blaney is going to win this championship, but this is no longer a two-man race,” the NASCAR insider opined.

Both Gluck and Bianchi also admitted that much could change in the coming weeks. But if Ford has a chance, it’s because Blaney has managed to hang around. Many have said he’s carrying the manufacturer on his back, and they may not be wrong. Team Penske’s and Ford’s last six Cup Series victories have all come courtesy of Blaney, and in Atlanta, he was a class apart from his teammates. The closest Ford driver to him was Joey Logano, who finished ninth and never looked like a serious threat to the front-runners.

For Blaney, meanwhile, it was the perfect race. It wasn’t easy, but it was perfect. He had to keep his composure, take a few gambles, and race to the finish line with two cars right alongside him. But looking back on the Quaker State 400 weekend, Blaney admitted he could not have asked for anything better.

Ryan Blaney reflects on a historic night at the EchoPark Speedway

“Just an ideal weekend, weekends that you don’t really get. We’re sitting on the pole, getting both stages, winning the race. That’s a dream weekend, right there. Just fortunate that we brought a really fast car, I appreciate everybody at Team Penske,” Blaney said after the race to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

And boy, was Blaney fast. He led 171 laps on the night, an utterly dominant performance and the most laps led by a driver in a drafting-style race since Richard Petty led 184 in the 1964 Daytona 500. That said, at one point, there were fears that he would end the night without a trip to Waffle House.

At the start of Stage 3, Blaney took on extra fuel, which dropped him to 18th. But by spending most of the remainder of the race in the draft, he used less fuel than the other front-runners. So when everyone made their final pit stops, Blaney needed less fuel, allowing him to get off pit road ahead of the field.

“It got us back to restart on the first couple of rows. We were slowly working our way up through there, but my car was best in the lead,” Blaney said. “In the front of the pack, I could kind of manage the race pretty well. I could manage lanes pretty decent.”

Even after that, there were some tense moments, as contact with Bubba Wallace left Blaney feeling vibrations in his car. But the No. 12 team chose to keep him on track, a decision that paid off. On the final lap, Blaney was on the outside, Wallace on the inside, and Carson Hocevar in the middle. A big push from Christopher Bell gave Blaney the momentum he needed, and he crossed the line just 0.068 seconds ahead of Bell. Wallace initially finished second but was penalized for going below the double-yellow line on the final lap, dropping him to 29th.

Atlanta may have changed the complexion of the regular-season title fight. Blaney has momentum, confidence, and a car capable of winning races. If he can put together a few more weekends like this one, Hamlin and Reddick’s lead at the top may not last much longer.