6 days agoJoey Logano of Team Penske finished eighth after a hard-fought, topsy-turvy day at Martinsville Speedway. Starting from the seventh position, Logano ran in the top 10 through the first stage until his first pit stop on lap 33. Logano had fresher tires and then spent the rest of the stage working through the field until he got to the lead. Logano won the first stage and collected major stage points as a result. In the second stage, Logano pitted and restarted from the rear of the field. The No. 22 Ford driver spent the stage trying to rally back into the top 10 but fell short; he ranked 12th and failed to obtain more stage points at the end of the second stage. In the final stage, Logano continued to make up ground until he spun on lap 317 due to Chase Briscoe hopping a curb on the track and spinning him out. Logano took fresh tires on the ensuing caution and spent the rest of the time recovering to the eighth position for his first top-10 finish of the season.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: NASCAR.com
1 week agoWe're six races into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and the defending series Champion doesn't have a single top-10 finish. That could definitely change this weekend in the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway. Joey Logano is one of the best at this race track and is currently on an 11-race streak of top-10 finishes at "The Paperclip." He only has one career Martinsville victory, but in 32 career starts at the track, Logano has only finished outside of the top 15 eight times. That kind of consistent good run is hard to come by in NASCAR. This weekend, Logano struggled a bit in practice (20th-fastest) but rebounded with a strong qualifying effort and will start from seventh place on Sunday. His teammate, Ryan Blaney, looked really strong in practice, though, and you have to believe that Logano could tap into that speed during the race as well. In DFS, Logano is one of those drivers that could easily go overlooked since many fantasy managers have been left with a bad taste in their mouth because of his performance lately. In tournament formats, it may be worth considering being overweight on him this weekend at his $9,600 DraftKings salary.
--Jordan McAbeeSource: NASCAR.com
2 weeks agoDefending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano's streak of zero top-10 finishes to start the 2025 season continued with a 14th-place finish at Homestead. Given the speed of the Penske cars (especially Logano's teammate Ryan Blaney) in Sunday's event, Logano must have expected more. After starting 12th, Logano drove up to sixth when the caution for Christopher Bell's spin came out, but he lost several positions in the pits and only finished 10th at the end of Stage 1. During the stage-break caution, Logano and his quasi-teammate Josh Berry made contact in the pits, and both drivers spun and struggled to recover. Logano did drive his way back to finish 14th, stopping the bleeding once again. His many stage points have allowed him to maintain the 11th spot in points, and he now only sits two points behind his teammate Blaney, even though he significantly out-ran Logano on Sunday.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
2 weeks agoJoey Logano has gotten a lot of criticism for being the first defending NASCAR Cup Series champion to fail to earn a top-10 finish in the first five races of the season, but that doesn't reflect how well he has run as the Penske cars seem to be a lot faster this year, and Logano has led large portions of four of the five races to date. However, while Logano was very successful at Homestead with the Gen 6 chassis -- most notably when he won the 2018 championship race -- he has never led a lap with the Next Gen chassis and has not finished better than eigth since 2019. Nonetheless, expect him to run better than he did in 2022 and 2024 since he likely threw those races away after clinching his Championship 4 spot at Las Vegas in both years to prepare for Phoenix. Now that this race is in the regular season in a year Logano is leading most races, he's probably a dark-horse contender to win as long as he can control this year's Stage 3 fades.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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