Two of the last four Cup Series championships. That’s what Team Penske had walking into 2026. Titles in 2022 and 2024, the latter won in a season where Logano clawed his way back from 17th in the standings, proved that they are a resourced, proven, battle-hardened outfit. But eleven races into 2026, the contrast inside their own garage is hinting otherwise.
One of their guys, Ryan Blaney, is sitting 4th in points with a win and seven top-10s. The other, Logano, has collected 17 total points across his last three races, is outside the Chase cutline, and is currently enduring the worst three-race stretch of his Cup career. Notably, this is the first time Logano has strung together three consecutive finishes of 30th or worse since two months into his rookie season with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2009.
And Logano knows exactly where things stand.”You just keep grinding,” he said. “You can’t quit. You’ve just got to keep pushing through.”
From a three-time champion, it’s about as genuine plus direct an admission of a genuine crisis as you’ll hear. And the context supports it: Logano is currently on a 36-race winless streak, dating back to Texas in May 2025, with an average finish of 21.0 that ranks worst of the Penske trio and below every full-time Ford driver.
Still, showing that all hope is not lost, Logano pointed to Texas as a silver lining. Before the pit road crash wrecked his day, the No. 22 was legitimately among the fastest cars on track in that final run.
“Arguably the best car that last run,” he said in the interview with Frontstretch “We were just trying to get our way through the field, so I felt good about that. There’s some positives that they got of all those things, so you look at that. Learn from mistakes.”
Here’s the problem, though. Feeling good about the speed you can’t convert into results only goes so far. Joey Logano has led six laps total across his last seven races. Six.
So, Kyle Petty put it plainly on PRN Fast Talk: “They have no speed. If we just go to Bristol, they qualified pole, seventh or eighth with Cindric, and 28th or 29th with Joey, and that’s the way he’s been all year. Joey needs speed to start, to get up front and run there, because it’s a totally different race coming from the back.”
He can still qualify well, since he put the No. 22 on the pole at Phoenix back in March, and qualified sixth at Watkins Glen on Saturday, his best road-course starting position since 2024. But qualifying speed and race-day pace are two completely different things right now, and the gap between them is pulling his resume down.
Now look at Ryan Blaney. Same manufacturer, same team structure, same 2026 rule changes affecting everyone equally. Blaney won at Phoenix in March. Led 190 laps at Bristol and lost by 0.055 seconds, that’s basically a door width. Came from the back at Darlington to finish third.
He’s done all of this with the worst pit crew in the Cup Series, a group that has hemorrhaged 88 positions on pit road through eight races, 31 more than any other team. And he’s still 4th in points. Still, the guy everyone circles on their strategy board as a title threat.
Logano is currently seven points outside the playoff cutline with Chase Briscoe sitting in that 16th spot ahead of him. Under the new format, there’s no winning your way in. You need to be in the top 16 on points after 26 regular-season races, full stop. A bad weekend at Watkins Glen, and that gap grows. A couple more ugly Sundays and it’ll be genuinely dire.
Phoenix was where the Season Broke for Joey Logano
Numbers-wise, Talladega was Logano’s worst finish, 39th, swallowed by a 26-car pileup. But Phoenix on March 8 was the race that actually broke something. That was the one where everything was in his favour, and he still walked away with nothing.
He had the pole. He led 73 laps. His car was the class of the field early. Then, on Lap 217, a restart went wrong; he made contact with Ross Chastain, and the resulting chaos also caught teammate Austin Cindric. The car survived, but its handling balance went into disbalance. Then on Lap 254, merging back onto the track from the apron, he got pinched three-wide, clipped AJ Allmendinger, and spun into two more cars. Front suspension gone. Radiator done. Thirty-first place.
While Joey Logano was done for the day, Blaney, who had restarted 28th after a pit penalty and a loose wheel, was leading with ten laps to go. He won the race.
That moment right there is the picture of Penske’s 2026. One driver bending every bad situation to his will. The other was watching a dominant car turn into wreckage twice in the same afternoon. Logano’s right that the tough get going. He just needs Sunday to start looking a little more like his Saturdays.
