Joey Logano’s blistering redemption this season continued with his Cook Out 400 win at Richmond on Saturday night. At one point, he was 20th in the standings and looked far off the pace needed to qualify for the Chase. But after Richmond, which was his second win in the last four races, the Team Penske driver already has championship talk swirling around him. So, it was somewhat surprising that the first thing he did after getting out of the car following the Cook Out was admit that the runner-up was faster.

It’s not something you often hear a race-winner say, right in Victory Lane. But Logano said it without blinking, which says a lot about how the No. 22 team operates.

“I think so. We got a strong team, no doubt. And, you know, the 19 was better than us that last run,” Logano said in the post-race interview, talking about Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe.

Chase Briscoe’s Toyota was the fastest car all night. He led 171 laps and had a two-second lead late in the race. Since Logano could not match his speed, he and crew chief Paul Wolfe had to find another way to win.

With 39 laps left, Logano passed Briscoe before making his pit stop. Briscoe tried to match Logano’s speed entering pit road but locked his front brakes and smoked his tires. That mistake helped Logano get off pit road first and take the lead.

With 24 laps left, Logano caught Christopher Bell, who had taken the lead after pitting 20 laps earlier. Bell’s tires were worn out from Richmond’s rough track, and Logano passed him easily on the outside. Briscoe also passed Bell and started closing the gap. But Logano used slower traffic to protect his lead and held on to win by just 0.392 seconds.

“Yeah, he was faster. Yeah, he kind of took off there, and I was like, okay, I’m gonna be okay. I just got to pass the 20. And then I just fell off harder the last run there.”

Super redemption today,” the three-time Cup Series champion added.

Richmond was a Toyota track on Saturday. Their cars led 270 of 400 laps. Briscoe was out front for most of it. Denny Hamlin finished fourth, Bell seventh, and Tyler Reddick eleventh. Four Toyotas in the top eleven, but none of them in victory lane.

Ford, meanwhile, won with 130 laps led, one winning move on pit road, and a crew chief who made the right call at the right moment. So, even on days when the JGR Toyotas prove to be faster, Logano and his team don’t give up. There are always ways to win, and Logano proved that in Richmond.

For Joey Logano, this victory also shot him from 17th to 9th in the standings. His teammate Austin Cindric finished third and helped himself too, jumping to 15th in points. That puts Shane van Gisbergen in the final playoff spot with a 50-point cushion over Ryan Preece heading into the last two regular-season races.

Ryan Blaney won the pole and led Stage 1, then fell off completely in the final run and finished 13th, one lap down. Hamlin, despite not winning, still leads the regular-season points standings.

“I gotta obviously, you know, Paul made some great calls there. And, yeah, just kind of a fun back-and-forth battle, a bunch of strategy there too with different strategies out there,” Logano continued.

Crew chief Wolfe has been doing this for years. Getting his driver to the front at the moment the race is actually decided. Saturday night was another example of exactly that.

The Even-Year Machine of Joey Logano

Six weeks ago, Logano was 18th and winless in 45 straight races. Then he went to North Wilkesboro on July 19 and led 323 of 450 laps. Three weeks after that, Richmond. Nine spots gained in the standings inside a month.

It looks like a hot streak, but it is actually a pattern. Go back through Joey Logano’s seasons over the last decade, and you will find the same thing happening again and again. In 2018, he had a quiet regular season before winning the Round of 8 opener at Martinsville. That early win gave his team extra time to prepare for the Homestead finale. He led 80 laps there and won the championship.

The same thing happened in 2020, when Logano won the Round of 8 race at Kansas and finished third in the final standings. In 2022, he won the Round of 8 race at Las Vegas before winning the championship at Phoenix. Then, in 2024, he barely made the playoffs but still went on to win his third title at Phoenix.

The 2026 playoff races are also heavy on short tracks, and Logano has already won on two different short-track layouts in four weeks. His short-track record this season has been strong, with wins at Richmond and North Wilkesboro, a third-place finish at Martinsville, and a seventh at Bristol.

The odd years tell a very different story. He was eliminated in the first round in 2023 and missed the Championship 4 in both 2021 and 2025. A month ago, Logano was not even expected to be a serious title contender. Now, he absolutely looks like one.

Teammate Ryan Blaney had already predicted this before the Iowa Corn 350 last weekend. Addressing Logano’s second-half resurgence, he admitted that he was never really concerned with the No. 22 driver‘s early-season slump. Logano and Wolf always showed up when it mattered.

“Is anybody surprised? I’ve had to see it all year of like ‘Oh, the 22 team is not running where they should.’ I’m just like in my mind: ‘Just wait.’ … They’re going to be someone you have to race with for sure, and it is no surprise to me they have been back to form here the last month or so,” Blaney, who is second in the standings, said in an interview.

The No. 22 team has made a habit of finding its best form when the championship is on the line, and this time, they are doing it with a short-track-heavy Chase ahead.