Joey Logano won the final Cup Series race of 2024 in Phoenix on Sunday to give Team Penske its third consecutive championship. It was also his third title after previously winning it in 2018 and 2022.
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What’s interesting about this outcome is that Logano was largely mediocre throughout the regular season. It was only in the playoffs did he managed to put up a decent string of runs together.
A couple of rightly timed victories then got him through the rounds and ultimately handed him the crown. This sequence shares a lot of similarities with Ryan Blaney’s championship run in 2023.
The No. 12 driver had built a strong end to his campaign on top of incredibly flat results. He won the final Round of 8 races in Martinsville to qualify for the Championship 4 and ended up winning the title.
This is what led a reporter to ask Denny Hamlin in Phoenix if he thought Team Penske was intentionally misleading its opponents by not revealing its true prowess during the regular season and for parts of the playoffs. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver replied, “Nobody would have speed and not show it throughout the season [or] in the playoffs because of the bonus points.”
“We have seen these things come down to a point here, a point there. But NASCAR inspects the car throughout the year. I don’t know how much they inspect during the playoffs, but I don’t know. You gotta think everything is straight up and legit unless they tell us otherwise.”
Hamlin finished his race in 11th place. He wasn’t in contention at the Championship Four since he was knocked out of the playoffs after the Round of 8 elimination round earlier.
Hamlin ends his long relationship with FedEx
Global logistics giant FedEx has sponsored the No. 11 driver since his debut in 2005. Just an hour before the start of Sunday’s race, a “Thank you, FedEx” video was posted on his Instagram handle letting the world know that the longest driver-sponsor tenure in NASCAR had come to an end. Hamlin confirmed the news after the race.
Asked if he can be expected to have a different tie with the sponsor, he answered, “Yeah, I mean I will always have a relationship with FedEx. The executives there have been so good to me over the years. My family and this team. So, absolutely. I will still bleed purple.” FedEx first began decreasing its involvement with NASCAR in 2021.
It went from sponsoring Hamlin for almost every race in a season to just having his back in 12 races (2023). The gap that it left was filled by companies like Mavis Tires and Yahoo this season. They can be expected to feature more on the No. 11 Toyota Camry in 2025.
