Martinsville gave Joey Logano a chance to keep his championship dream alive, but a promising afternoon quickly turned into a costly collapse. The Team Penske driver started fifth, climbed as high as third in the opening stage run, and worked his way back to fifth by the end of Stage 2. With rival title contenders struggling to put together clean races, Logano had an opening to make his final push toward Homestead. Instead, pit-road problems derailed his charge, leaving him 18th and ending his hopes of another Cup Series crown.
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“Yeah, we kind of had them where we wanted them, and they were trying to give it to us, and we gave it right back. So just yeah, frustrating is what it is. You know, you win as a team, lose as a team, and today we’re going to lose as a team,” Joey Logano expressed his disappointment in a post-race interview to NASCAR.
The No. 22 Team Penske Ford had enough speed to fight near the front, but mistakes in the final stage turned a competitive afternoon into an 18th-place finish. For a driver who had clawed his way back into title contention, the missed opportunity hurt even more because several of his rivals were vulnerable.
The decisive setback came during a scheduled pit stop on Lap 344. Logano had reported that his car needed to be tighter, giving the crew work to do on the handling adjustments. But the stop did not go to plan.
The team had to bring him back to pit road on the following lap to address a wheel issue, costing him valuable track position at a critical point in the race. A second pit-road problem compounded the damage when a wrench became caught in the rear window. Moreover, a crew member was dragged from the pit box while the team tried to free it. The sequence left Logano fighting from behind rather than making a late charge.
The frustration was not simply about a bad result. Logano believed the team had been in position to take advantage of the circumstances around them. Kyle Larson, the championship leader, had endured a difficult race by his standards. Staying out through the opening stage left Larson a lap down, and he needed a free pass to get back on the lead lap. He ultimately finished ninth, well short of the kind of result that would have put the title beyond doubt at Martinsville.
Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin also had their share of trouble. Bell was caught speeding on pit road after a caution on Lap 199, forcing him to recover from a penalty. Then, on Lap 216, Logano made contact with Bell entering Turn 1. Hamlin was running to Bell’s outside, and the three cars ran out of room, sending both Joe Gibbs Racing drivers spinning.
Both recovered to finish inside the top 10, but the incident disrupted their runs and added another layer of uncertainty to the title fight. Hamlin finished sixth, while Bell crossed the line 10th.
That was the opening Logano’s team needed to exploit. Instead, its own pit-road errors made it harder to capitalize on the trouble affecting the other contenders. Logano later admitted that the opportunities had been there over the previous few weeks, only for the team to leave points on the table.
He estimated that more than 60 points had slipped away over the last three or four races. That gap between what the team could have achieved and what it actually delivered was particularly painful after its comeback from the regular season had put a championship within reach.
Still, Logano was not ready to write off the season. He pointed to the improving speed of Team Penske’s Mustangs and the chance to carry that progress into the new car, the Ford Mustang Dark Horse SC, coming in 2027. Homestead also offers one final opportunity to finish the year with a victory and secure a strong points result.
“We still got one more race to try to win. And you know, we can still get the second in points, which would be an accomplishment.”
That goal gives Logano something meaningful to pursue after the title slipped away. He heads to Homestead fifth in the standings, just 36 points behind Christopher Bell, who sits in second place. He, therefore, has a chance to close the season with a result that reflects the team’s progress and move up to the runner-up spot rather than its late-race mistakes.
A win would not undo Martinsville. But finishing second in the final standings would still be a significant achievement after the comeback he described.