When Joey Logano edged Ross Chastain to get ahead at the Roval, he left his rivals anxious. After all, it was not the first time that the Team Penske barely advanced into the Round of 8. The last time he did so in 2024, Logano went on to unleash a fiery path to the NASCAR Cup Series championship. However, that anxiety in the garage took a backseat after last Sunday. Yet Denny Hamlin empathizes with Logano’s predicament.

The Yellawood 500 race unfolded at Talladega Superspeedway, a racetrack notorious for its mishaps and wrecks. Most of the conflicts unfold between opposing teams or OEMs. However, Joey Logano and Co. fell prey to an unexpected jostle with his own OEM due to Brad Keselowski.

Denny Hamlin dissects the Ford dilemma

In the last stage of the Talladega race, Team Penske was in a marvellous position. Joey Logano, who had led the most laps (35) held the third spot and his teammate, Ryan Blaney, ran second. Both have dominated the Cup Series championship for the last three years, and it seemed like this time, too, one of them would advance. However, directly behind them were RFK Racing drivers Brad Keselowski and Ryan Preece.

And the fellow Ford drivers could not make an aerodynamic draft work. Hence, Logano and Blaney lost ground. And Denny empathized with the Team Penske duo in an ‘Actions Detrimental’ episode: “I have sympathy for it because it’s like, damn it, we had control. I would feel the same way.” Joey Logano accused Brad Keselowski of trying to save fuel during those laps. And as a result, the bottom line dominated by the Penske racers lost ground to the outside line.

Denny Hamlin shared his insights further. “The 22 was doing his best to stay attached to the 12, I think he was doing a really good job. The six always kind of had like a gap to the 22 and so he wasn’t giving Joey enough of a shove to push the 12 as much as he probably wanted to. You got to keep backing up to figure out where’s the disconnect. Because all it takes is one person and that line choosing to say, “I don’t want to go all out. I want to I need to save fuel here.”

However, it turned out that Brad Keselowski was not trying to save gas, as his crew chief, Jeremy Bullins, told The Athletic. Nevertheless, Keselowski’s lack of a push proved detrimental to Team Penske. Logano finished 16th, Blaney 23rd, and neither of them factored in the outcome. “I mean, we had the control of this f—ing race and somehow gave it away. I don’t understand how that’s possible,” Blaney fumed over the radio. Both Logano (minus 38 points below the cutoff) and Blaney (minus 47 points) are in a must-win position entering next week.

Yet there were more optimistic insights into the Talladega fallout. And the positive takes came from a Team Penske official.

Pausing for more retrospect

Evidently, both Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney were left frustrated. What is more, even their rival OEM’s driver, Denny Hamlin, concurred with their predicament. However, it may be fair to take a second glance at Brad Keselowski’s situation. Granted, Keselowski was not among the playoff contenders, and should have supported his fellow Ford competitors. Yet the 6-time Talladega winner was eager to win. Immediately after starting 20th, he asserted himself in the three-lane draft. There was a synchronous tandem between him and his teammates, Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece. All of them delivered strong performances.

After upsetting Team Penske, Brad Keselowski finished 10th in Talladega. Although Joey Logano blamed him, Penske competition director Travis Geisler was not so quick to blame Keselowski. He stressed the need for a full review of data and video analysis. “Today was a pretty unique day,” Geisler said. “There were a lot of different lane choices going on, a lot of different scenarios taking place that maybe you don’t typically see here. So go back, rewatch it, get smarter and try to come back and … figure out how to do this good enough to get in the winner’s circle.”

So Brad Keselowski’s good finish was not viewed sourly by all the Penske people. Let’s wait and see if Penske can regain its form in its last chance for the title at Martinsville.