After the first six races of the current season, Team Penske’s Joey Logano has managed to finish in the top 10 just once at Las Vegas. While Ryan Blaney sits third on the leaderboard with 211 points, Logano is aware of the pressure on the #22 team as they are 22nd on points. However, why is a two-time Cup champion in such a mess?
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The biggest hurdle to overcome for the Ford team is to bring the most out of the NextGen engine. One would probably be surprised to hear that; after all, Logano won the championship in the year NASCAR brought about the new car. So why now?
“I’ve seen this story before, things look good on paper but when we get to the racetrack, things are different,” he told SiriusXM NASCAR radio. “We need to understand what those differences are.”
🤔 "I don't think we completely understand the car yet."@joeylogano knows there's work to be done for @FordPerformance to get their arms around their new Dark Horse Mustang. #NASCAR
More from #BehindTheWheel → https://t.co/keYsFmuVzu pic.twitter.com/zIvVkCOjN3
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) March 29, 2024
“In some ways, there’s definitely some gains. In other ways, I don’t think we’re maximizing the potential out of the car yet. I think, engine-wise, we need help there, for sure. We need to try to move forward in that department as much as we can to stay competitive,” he added.
He did mention that the Fords are great at superspeedways, but that promise should also show at other kinds of tracks as well. Hinting at the limited number of races on superspeedways throughout the schedule, Logano admitted, “That’s not enough races, we need to be good at some other ones too.”
How is the misery different in 2024?
In an interview with Frontstretch’s Tanner Marler, Logano candidly explained the situation of his team right now. Just like any other team in the Cup Series arena, the number 22 Penske team is also on a constant grind to qualify well and compete for the win. So why did he refer to their situation as being “in a hole”?
While his team has been unlucky on several occasions before, now is the time to either run up front and gather those points, or win a race to get a playoff pass. Unfortunately, never before has he been “in a hole” right from the beginning of the season. And that’s the saddest part.
“We’ve had portions of a season like this, it just never started like this,” asserted Logano. “Now it’s, you start at zero and you’re still down there at zero, so, got a lot of work to do.”
Will Richmond be the track where all of that work finds fruition? It’s only a matter of time before we get to see that.
