Yahoo Autos Penske smoothing out the rough spots in hunt for NASCAR title three-peat
The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs are a little over a month away and Team Penske has all three of its drivers championship-eligible as the organization seeks its third consecutive title.
Ryan Blaney is the reigning series champion. He captured his first championship a year after Joey Logano earned his second. As the final stretch to the 2024 postseason looms, Team Penske competition director Travis Geisler looks at the playoff point picture regarding how the organization shapes up.
“That tells the story of where you are and that tells the story for us,” Geisler said to RACER. “I think it’s pretty accurate.”
Blaney sits the highest of the Team Penske drivers at fifth on the playoff grid with two victories and 12 playoff points. Austin Cindric, who will make his second playoff appearance in three seasons, has seven playoff points to go with his lone victory at seventh on the grid. And Logano sits ninth on the grid with six playoff points and one victory.
“I feel very comfortable with where we are speed-wise with the No. 12 [team],” Geisler said. “I think our execution is catching up to our speed now on that team, so we’ve been able to keep that ball rolling. [Blaney] could very easily be sitting here with four wins (if) Gateway goes half a cup of fuel differently. If you look at Atlanta, where he was three-thousandths from winning when leading on the last lap. It’s like, man, we could have been in a great spot. But they’re definitely starting to get to where they need to for playoff form.”
Blaney might have been the hottest driver going into the Olympic break, with two victories in six races and a potential third slipping away at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He moved to fifth overall in the championship standings (important for bonus points pertaining to reseeding) while leading 271 laps in that stretch.
The only Ford driver with multiple victories, Blaney has carried the torch for the manufacturer and Team Penske all season. But if there is such a thing as peaking at the right time, it seems Blaney, crew chief Jonathan Hassler, and the group is firing on all cylinders ahead of their title defense.
“I think the No. 22, we’ve got to find a way to find some more speed there,” Geisler said of Logano’s team. “They execute really well, they do all the little things right, we just have to find some more overall speed because you’re not going to get through the playoffs with one win going into it and not have a win somewhere (else). When you get to that final round to get in the final four, if you only go in there with a handful of bonus points, it won’t happen. So, I think we’re definitely on the search for speed there.”
Improved consistency is the key to Cindric’s championship hopes. Gavin Baker/Motorsport Images
It took until the last weekend in June at Nashville Superspeedway, a five-overtime race that came down to survival of the fuel tanks, before Logano and crew chief Paul Wolfe punched their ticket to the postseason. It had been a stressful few races leading into Nashville as Logano bounced around the bubble spot.
Logano and his team have not had the same spark from the 2022 campaign when they won the championship. It was a one-win season in ’23 and an early exit in the postseason, which has carried over into a continued fight for speed and balance with their Ford Mustang. Xonsistency would go a long way, too, as Logano has three top-10 finishes in the last six races and three finishes outside the top 20.
“And then I think for the No. 2, we’re on the search for overall consistency,” Geisler said of Cindric’s team. “We’ve been able to have some really strong races – Gateway was super-strong, but then you back it up with something that’s not. We have to figure out how to smooth out those ups and downs.
“That’s kind of maybe the tale of the tape for those three.”
It has never been a speed issue for Cindric and crew chief Brian Wilson, but it doesn’t matter how fast a car is when a team isn’t executing. Cindric has gone many weeks showing speed Saturday in practice and qualifying that didn’t carry over to a Sunday result. The victory at WWTR was one of those weekends when it did as Cindric qualified second, ran top five all afternoon, and went to victory lane when Blaney ran out of fuel.
It’s far easier for a team to clean up its messes than find speed. The results for Cindric have been wildly inconsistent, with an average finish of 20.6 and three top-10 finishes. And yet, Geisler isn’t surprised that all three teams are battling something different.
“They’re definitely not on an island when it comes to preparation, working together, getting ready for the race weekends,” he said. “I think the overall end results are a little more spread than what we want, that’s for sure. But when you see us and we’re strong, we all tend to be strong, and I think that’s important. But our weak tracks are weak for all our teams, and our strong tracks are strong for all our teams. We just have to close the gap between them.”
Four races are left in the regular season for the Team Penske drivers to add to their playoff point buckets. A victory in any of those four races is worth five playoff points and a stage win (there are eight stages ahead) is worth one playoff point.
No organization has won three consecutive Cup Series championships since Hendrick Motorsports had a stretch of five straight with Jimmie Johnson (2006-10).
