While a lot of the attention after the Cup race at Richmond was around the drivers who finished P1, P3, and P4, not a lot of people have been talking about the man who finished P2. Had that late caution not come out, Joey Logano perhaps would have gotten the better of Martin Truex Jr and taken his first race win of the season. While things did not work out in his favor in the end, the Team Penske star did a fantastic job of holding onto second place despite Truex and Kyle Larson charging at him with everything they had. However, it seems the driver still has some lingering regrets despite finishing so high up the table, which he revealed in a post-race interview. Seemingly there were a lot of “chances” he wanted to take but couldn’t.

Joey Logano played the race leaders but failed to take his chances

It has not been a good start to the season for Logano, but he displayed the calmness and race craft of a champion at Richmond on the final restart. The Team Penske star had a plan laid out to take the race win, but the late caution ruined everything. Speaking to the media after the event, he revealed his strategy and rued the opportunities he could not take when the time was right.

“You get 2, 3 car lengths back and you stall out. It’s just what it is. I started pressuring the #19 around the end of that long run and he was racing hard with Ross trying to stay on the lead lap. I wasted my opportunity. I got Denny to burn his stuff up trying to pass me. I thought, ‘Okay, this is my chance’, and I got close to him and burned my stuff up about 3 to go,” he said. “There are a few things we all could have done better,” the Team Penske star added when asked about the final restart.

The 2-time Cup Series champion is considered by many in the racing community as the greatest NASCAR driver of this generation, but things have been slow of late. Logano seems to be well aware of this and even honestly conceded that it was going to take time to get back to the top.

NASCAR Toyota Owners 400: Denny Hamlin Clinches Richmond Checkered Amidst Miserable Kyle Busch’s ‘Strategy Disruption’

The Team Penske star is ready for a “slow climb”

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Imagine the irony. Just a couple of days after Joey Logano said that it was going to take some time to get back to where he wanted to be, he won a race. What a story that would have been. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case on Sunday and the Team Penske star will have to wait some more before he sees Victory Lane again. However, when it comes to his team’s overall performance, Logano has certainly dished out an extremely promising performance for Team Penske with the team’s other drivers, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric, settling for a P19 and P23, respectively. While that should be comforting enough, Joey Logano isn’t going to stop until he can see himself clinch a win. But, at the same time, he knows the road to that isn’t going to be easy.

“It’s a slow climb back to the top. It always is. But you have to start slowly, grabbing the little victories here and there. Little things that we’re doing well on and off the track. And there is, and we’re slowly grabbing some points back up through the ranks a little bit,” he had said as per RACER ahead of the Toyota Owners 400. After the race, too, Joey Logano was seen mentioning on X, how his 550th Cup Series start could’ve ended in Victory Lane. It seems it was a classic case of ‘so-near-yet-so-far’ for him.

That being said, will the driver of the #22 car be able to break his winless streak and finally celebrate a P1 when NASCAR goes to the Martinsville Speedway next weekend? Only time will tell.

Kyle Larson Unfazed by Martin Truex Jr’s Uncharacteristic Display After His Frustrating Loss at Richmond