Team Penske Tweaks No. 12 Crew In Bid To Steady Blaney’s Season

The NASCAR Cup Series is built on speed, strategy, and execution, but championships are often won or lost in the 40 feet of concrete known as pit road. A tenth of a second can swing track position, and a single mistake can bury a contender. Team Penske knows this well heading into Kansas Speedway, where pit cycles routinely decide the race.

To protect Ryan Blaney’s title hopes, the organization made a significant personnel change as he sits second in the standings with one win, three top‑fives, and six top‑tens in eight races. His No. 12 Ford has ranked inside the top five in median lap speed in five events and has led 214 laps, the most of any Ford driver.

But the numbers behind the wall tell a different story. Blaney’s pit crew has cost him more track position than any other playoff‑caliber team, and Penske has reached the point where action is no longer optional.

A Championship Car Held Back By Pit‑Road Failures

The statistical profile of the No. 12 pit crew is brutal. NASCAR Insights ranks the unit 35th out of 36 full‑time teams after Bristol, where Blaney finished second despite losing 11 positions on pit road. Racing Insights shows the crew averaging 12.54 seconds on four‑tire stops.

That’s nearly 1.2 seconds slower than the Cup Series average of 11.36. In today’s NASCAR, that gap is enormous. It’s the difference between restarting on the front row and being mired in dirty air. The mistakes have piled up. The No. 12 crew has committed six major service errors, the most in the series: two loose wheels, two slow jacks, and two uncontrolled tires.

Those errors have cost Blaney 88 total positions on pit road and left him with a 51 percent position‑retention rate, the lowest among competitive teams. Phoenix Raceway was the breaking point. Blaney overcame two loose wheels and a net loss of 45 positions to win a heroic drive, but not a sustainable model.

Penske’s internal projections showed that if the trend continued, Blaney would lose more than 300 positions on pit road by the end of the regular season. That number is incompatible with a championship run.

The Veteran Jackman Called In To Stop The Bleeding

To stabilize the operation, Team Penske has reassigned veteran jackman Patrick Gray to the No. 12 team beginning at Kansas. Gray brings more than 150 Cup Series starts of experience and has worked under championship‑level pressure on Austin Cindric’s No. 2 crew.

His stop‑to‑stop variance, a key measure of consistency, ranked inside the top ten among all jackmen last season. Gray also stepped in as a relief jackman for the No. 22 team during the 2024 championship race at Phoenix, delivering a flawless performance that helped secure the title. Penske trusts him because he performs cleanly when the stakes are highest.

His arrival is expected to cut at least three‑tenths of a second off the jack cycle alone, a meaningful gain in a sport where tenths determine track position. Landon Honeycutt, who previously served as Blaney’s jackman, will move to the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team in a direct swap.

Penske believes the change aligns personnel with the specific demands of each pit box and gives Blaney the steadier presence he needs. It also signals the organization is done waiting for incremental gains. The pressure now shifts to execution, where even small improvements can reshape Blaney’s season.

Why the Penske–Wood Brothers Pipeline Matters

This move doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Wood Brothers Racing operates as a full technical partner with Team Penske, sharing pit‑development programs, personnel pipelines, and performance infrastructure. When Penske shifts a veteran like Gray, the ripple naturally reaches the No. 21 team.

That’s where Josh Berry comes in. Honeycutt will now work with Berry’s crew, and the No. 21 team will be adjusting on the fly with a new jackman and a temporary crew chief. Matt Swiderski will call the race for Berry at Kansas while regular crew chief Miles Stanley steps away for personal reasons.

Berry has a career‑best finish of sixth at Kansas, and Penske will be watching closely to see how the alliance team adapts under pressure. The performance of the No. 21 group matters because its data feeds back into Team Penske’s broader competitive model.

Strong execution from Berry’s team helps validate the personnel shuffle and strengthens the entire pit‑road ecosystem. It also reinforces Penske’s belief that the right combinations can stabilize performance across all three cars. When one unit hits its mark, it raises the standard for everyone around them.

What This Means

For Team Penske, this move signals a hard pivot from patience to urgency. The organization has watched a championship‑caliber car get dragged backward on pit road for eight straight weeks, and the data left no room for interpretation. Blaney’s speed isn’t the problem. The execution behind the wall is.

By inserting Patrick Gray, Penske is betting that experience, consistency, and proven under‑pressure performance will immediately stabilize the No. 12’s weakest link. It also reinforces how tightly integrated the Penske–Wood Brothers pipeline has become.

Every personnel shift affects both garages, and this swap places added responsibility on the No. 21 team as they adjust to a new jackman and an interim crew chief. If both teams trend upward, it validates Penske’s internal evaluation model.

If not, the organization will have to keep digging for answers as the summer stretch approaches. The margin for error only shrinks from here, and every missed opportunity becomes harder to recover from. Kansas may be the first sign of whether the fixes are working or simply delaying a larger issue.

What’s Next

Kansas becomes the first real test of whether this overhaul can change the trajectory of Blaney’s season. He already has the pace to run up front. He just needs a pit crew capable of keeping him there. Even modest gains on pit road would instantly raise his ceiling and give Penske the momentum it’s been missing.

But the margin for error is shrinking. With contenders tightening their programs and the field around him getting sharper every week, Blaney can’t afford another Sunday spent digging out of holes created on pit road. Penske has made its move. Now the No. 12 crew has to prove it was the right one.

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