BROOKLYN, Mich. – It wasn’t a win in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway, but Joey Logano snapped nearly a five-week funk with a third-place finish and gaining some much-needed momentum as the summer stretch presses on.
“Yeah, you have no idea how good this feels,” Logano said. “It’s been a struggle the last month-and-a-half and it’s nice to come here to Michigan, maybe our best race track and be able to overcome a lot. I’m not sure we had a third-place car today but the team executed like they needed to get the Shell-Pennzoil Ford into the top-three. Proud of the effort.”
After restarting third after the final caution on Lap 196, Logano said he wished he could have hit reset on the five-lap shootout – as he feels he left another position on the table.
“I wish I could have the last restart back. I think I could have gotten to second,” he explained. “I wasn’t able to stay attached to the 42 (Kyle Larson). I had a good start but the whole bottom lane was able to stack up really good and push ahead and then Denny (Hamlin) slid up in front of us; just racing there. Turning the momentum a bit and bringing home a solid top-five and change things.”
After a stretch of five races where Logano 21st or worse after lacking speed or getting collected in a crash, the No. 22 Team Penske team showed up in the Motor City with speed.
The speed carried from practice to qualifying and for much of the race’s 200-laps. Trapped well outside the top-15 with 50 laps remaining, Logano benefited from a few late race cautions to climb through the field and score his seventh top-five of 2017.
More importantly, Logano said his team stopped the bleeding of uncharacteristically poor performances.
“Feels like a win, just to stop the bleeding,” added Logano. “No secret, last month, month and a half, has been a struggle for us with just a lot of things going wrong during the races. This was an uneventful race for us.
“We made the most possible out of our car. The only way we were going to do better is something crazy happening in front of me and sneak by to get the lead. That was the only way I was going to do it.
“We had a 10th‑place car. We finished third with it. Proud of that. We had a rough month and a half. We stopped the bleeding today. I’m proud of that, as well.
“You know, you’re right, it’s not a win. But all things considered, over the last month or so, it feels really nice just to stop the bleeding.”
After scoring the victory at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway in April, Logano’s season took a tumble after the team was hit with an L1 penalty for a rear suspension issue.
As a result of the infraction, Logano’s crew chief was suspended for two races and fined $50,000. The team also suffered a loss of 25 driver and team owner points. NASCAR also ruled the violation an encumbered finished meaning Logano’s first win of the season will not count towards earning a playoff spot.
Knowing that his Team Penske team would like to have another victory in their back pocket before the end of the regular season at Richmond International Raceway in September, Logano says his team still has work to do to get better moving forward.
“We’re slowly making progress,” he said. “This next couple weeks, obviously you got Sonoma and Daytona, kind of is not the typical racing we always do, so it’s going to change that up a little bit. We got a couple weeks to digest what just happened here and try to build something better for when we come back to a mile‑and‑a‑half type racetrack.
“I think we’re slowly but surely fixing things, understanding our car better, understanding what I need to do to go fast, what to ask for out of my car, all that stuff.
“We can’t race in traffic as well as we need to. That’s our biggest weakness right now. We just got to be able to work on that stuff a little bit. We’ve made progress. We’re getting better, but we still got a ways to go.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01
