Joey Logano won the season finale in Phoenix on Sunday to become a three-time Cup Series champion. By doing so, he also gave Team Penske its third consecutive title.
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Amidst all the festivities, a sole string of criticism has attached itself to him and his team. It nags them by repeatedly stating that they do not deserve to be champions due to their mediocre performance throughout the season.
It also credits their success to the faulty playoff format and that alone. The No. 22 team’s crew chief, Paul Wolfe, addressed this criticism during his post-race conference in Phoenix. He expressed that it wasn’t fair, since they only played by the rules laid out by the promotion. Logano wasn’t caught deploying any illegal or controversial racing method.
Wolfe said, “I don’t know that it’s fair to say that we couldn’t win if we went back to the old format. That’s not how we planned out our season. We work on our season based on what the format is now. So, sure, it’s easy to say. And were we fast a lot of races this year? No. But we executed to what the format is now, and that’s why we’re the champions.”
Many drivers started off the season on an incredibly strong note and failed to perform as the year progressed. Team Logano did the opposite.
They kickstarted their engines pretty late in the playoffs and performed well in the right junctures to ensure their progress through each round. Discrediting the team for the win instead of demanding a format change from NASCAR is treading a fine ethical line.
Logano backs Wolfe with his opinion
The overwhelming contention of the naysayers is that Logano wouldn’t have been able to secure the title if the old Chase format had been in play. What a few tend to forget is that the sport moved away from that for some concerning reasons. Logano touched upon this in his post-race interview.
He said, “I don’t know if you have a lot of the moments we have today without the playoffs system that we have. Do you want to see the championship crowned with three races to go? Because that’s what used to happen!” He also explained that the current format helps create multiple interesting storylines and is much better than what used to be.
The champion had one question along the lines of what Wolfe had spoken about. He asked, “I don’t like people talking that way. I mean if the rules were the old way, we would play it out differently, wouldn’t we?” All things said and done, Logano is the reigning Cup Series champion and there’s no changing that.
