Team Penske is one of the most successful organizations in all of racing. From their IndyCar triumphs to three Cup Series championships in a row, Roger Penske has built a powerhouse. However, there seems to be a worrying pattern emerging in the Cup Series, and Joey Logano just pointed it out. Is this the Team Penske blueprint? Or is it just a big coincidence?

The defending Cup Series Champion was under immense scrutiny after his win last year. With an average finish of 17.0 and winning just one regular-season race at Nashville, Logano was bashed for winning a championship that favors singular wins over consistent outings. In 2025, Joey Logano acknowledged the team’s struggles on the track to start the season, but he noted that historically, that’s been the Penske way!

Joey Logano knows that Penske has recovered from worse

When the checkered flag dropped at Talladega Superspeedway, Team Penske breathed a sigh of relief. After a torrid start to the season that saw them without a win in 9 races and Joey Logano without a top-5 finish, both happened at the same race! The superspeedway maestros delivered again, as Austin Cindric took the win over Ryan Preece by 0.002 seconds in a nail-biter.

And despite releasing a barrage of abuse toward Cindric at the end of stage 2, Logano was happy after the race as he got his first top-5 of the season. However, post-race inspection snatched that joy away from Team Penske. Cindric still kept his win, but Logano was disqualified for a missing spoiler bolt, and it shot him out of the top 10 in the Cup Series standings.

Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR, Joey Logano opened up on Team Penske’s rough start to the season, saying, “You just gotta look at the positives, and this has been one of those years to start. The positives are that the car’s going pretty fast. We’re executing at a very high level, from a speed perspective.” Logano isn’t wrong here. Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Austin Cindric have led the 3rd, 4th, and 5th most laps, respectively, this season. Despite that, Cindric is the only one to win a race while Logano’s average finish is the worst at 19.7! So it’s clearly a problem of racing well and finishing poorly. However, Logano feels that Penske has always been like this, and history backs him up. 

Logano added, “We’ve been in this scenario before. I think of our championship years, haven’t started off the best. In some of the years that we haven’t won the championship, we came out of the gate swinging. Things were awesome… It’s just what it is. Race is a weird sport. So many variables than other sports.” The most recent example of this is the 2024 season itself.

Last year, it was once again Austin Cindric who gave Penske their first win, and it took till June at Gateway for that to happen! And after that, the floodgates were open. Blaney won his first of the season two races later at Iowa, and two races after that, Logano did his thing in a quintuple overtime win at Nashville. When it rains, it pours for Team Penske, be it bad or good results. Touching on Logano’s point of Penske starting a season well and not winning the championship, 2019 is a perfect example.

They started the 2019 season very strong, with Brad Keselowski winning at Atlanta in the second race of the season, followed by Joey Logano winning at Las Vegas the next week. By mid-June, Team Penske already had six wins, but in the end it was Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch who took home the championship, and not a single Penske driver was in the championship 4! Kevin Harvick was the only Ford in a sea of Toyotas with Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Kyle Busch. Sometimes, how you end matters more than how you start, and Team Penske has embodied that culture when they win championships.

However, while Joey Logano was vocal about Penske’s history of coming back from tough situations, he also opened up on the disappointment the #22 team feels during such tough times. He added, “You show up to the racetrack and you’re like ‘Man, I just want a normal solid weekend.’ As much as we thought we had that even this weekend… didn’t get out of the racetrack before I was like ‘Aww really? Come on!'” The disqualification was a huge setback for a team looking to catch a break, but Joey emphasized that there is still a lot of time left. 

“Everybody on the 22 has been doing this for a long time. 90% of them. A couple of them are fairly young and new… Everyone on the road crew has been there, done that. Lived this story before and know it’s a long, long season.” Roger Penske’s men are battle-tested veterans. Built on a mountain of experience and a history of excellence, Team Penske knows that the season is far from over. 

Austin Cindric has got the ball rolling for them, and Ryan Blaney has undoubtedly been their standout performer so far, but pit road issues and blown engines have ruined stellar days for the #12. It felt like Penske was due a win, and they got it at Talladega. Could this mean the floodgates are open for Logano and Blaney to follow suit? Let us know what you think in the comments!