Joey Logano’s season isn’t off to a great start, and the Penske #22 driver knows he has to put in a lot of work to get into the chase with any hopes of fighting for the title.

With three titles to his name, the last one in 2024, Logano was supposed to be Team Penske’s lead driver, but the way the season has turned out, Logano’s third-place finishes at Martinsville and Daytona are the closest he’s come to a race win.

Logano has struggled to find pace at the start of races and qualifying, leaving the champion driver too much catching up to do in the latter stages of each race. Add mechanical issues to that, like Darlington, where he finished three laps down in 33rd; the story hasn’t been great so far for the #22 driver.

Logano spoke about how he needs to perform going ahead, “I think you've got to be in the top five points and we've got to get there. The bottom line is that we’re 12th right now. We got some work to do to get there, but we’re not that far away from it.”

Logano broke down the math: “If you have a solid race where you score 40-plus points, top five all day long, top 5 stages, top five finish, you can score that.” He added about other circumstances,

“Let's say the nine, not wishing bad luck on anybody here. Let’s say he had a crash, or something went wrong, and he scored one or two three-point shots. All of a sudden you've jumped that car from 5th to 12th.

Logano said that while the circumstances have to be right, “It’s not going to all happen in one race. To say that we’re going to score that many points on a nine-on-one weekend is probably unrealistic.”

Stage Points Are The Real Test for Logano

Before the season began, Logano had said that it would be nearly impossible to win the title going into the Chase at 12th place. And he has already set out a decent expectation of where the title could possibly be won from. 

But to get there, Logano believes that it’s not just race wins or the points you pick up at the end of the race but also stage points. With multiple points on offer for the top ten in each stage, Logano said, “It’s more going to be gaining 5 to 10 points a week out of those cars in front of us and eventually get there.”

Logano said where the points can be gained, “That has to come from race finishes, but stage points dictate a lot of that. Stage points to me is the ultimate speed test.”

Logano further said, "I think when you look at total stage points, that’s kind of where you qualify and how consistent are you through the race from just a speed perspective.”

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Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Kaamna Dwivedi