- Joey Logano is in a slump, as it has been a year since his last win.
- Jordan Bianchi blames Team Penske for the No. 22 team’s struggles.
- Explore possible reasons for Logano’s sweating.
Joey Logano has long stood as a flagbearer for the elimination-style playoff system that crowned a “Championship 4” winner-take-all finale. That era also ushered in stage racing and a “win-and-you’re-in” route to the postseason.
For Logano and Team Penske, that system often paid off. Paired with the Next Gen car, the format delivered results, with Penske drivers claiming three titles in four seasons, two of them going to Logano. Now, with NASCAR shifting back to the Chase format, the ground under his feet appears to have shifted, and Logano has struggled to find his rhythm.
Joey Logano’s current form vs previous Seasons
At this point last year, Joey Logano had already punched his ticket to the playoffs with a win at Texas. That came despite a run that featured no top-five finishes and only one top-10, recorded at Martinsville. This season, the ledger reads two top-five finishes and three top-10s, yet without the “win-and-you’re-in” provision, those results have not carried the same weight, leaving him on the outside looking in.
Even his title run in 2024 looked pretty similar. Logano secured the championship with four wins but posted an average finish of 17, the lowest mark for a champion. The season was inconsistent, but a timely surge in the playoffs and a path through the rounds carried him to the finale and the title. Last year, after one win, while he managed to get inside the playoffs, with the help of four top 5s and six top 10s in the playoffs, the No. 22 driver managed to finish the season in P7.
However, that’s not the case this year. Following the Texas race, Logano sits 17th in the standings with an average finish of 21.0. His season opened with a win in the Daytona Duel, followed by a third-place finish in the Daytona 500, another third at Martinsville, and seventh at Bristol. Since then, the wheels have come off, with no finish better than 30th across the last three races.
But this pattern is not new for the No. 22 team. They have often shown flashes of pace, strung together a result or two, and then slipped back, unable to sustain momentum. Last season ended without a win, and the current run echoes that trend.
“Weren’t great last year”
Journalist Jordan Bianchi echoed that view in a discussion with Jeff Gluck. “If you’re the 22 team, and it’s really easy just to look at this year and go, hey, listen, we’re having this bad luck down here, that kind of thing, right? And this is why things turn around. You’ve got to look back further. This is not like a 10-race slump.”
“Go back to last year. They didn’t run that well a lot of last year, most of last year. They had moments, and obviously, they won this race a year ago. But they weren’t great last year by any means.”
Yet Bianchi did not lay the blame solely at Logano’s door. He pointed instead to a broader issue within Team Penske, particularly on 1.5-mile tracks. There remain circuits where Joey Logano continues to perform, including New Hampshire, Phoenix, and Martinsville, but across the full schedule, the No. 22 team has not met its mark.
Possible reasons behind Logano’s slump
- A lack of pace in the No. 22 Ford has left Joey Logano chasing the field, while the shift in format has removed the levers he once pulled precisely. After winning titles in 2018, 2022, and 2024 despite modest regular-season points, Logano now faces a system that rewards consistency over timely wins.
- The revised 2026 Chase format has done away with “win-and-you’re-in” and multi-race playoff rounds. Critics once labeled Logano a driver who mastered the playoff structure; the new points-based approach has instead exposed the team’s inability to deliver across the full stretch of the season.
- Within the Penske camp, Ryan Blaney has managed to stay in the hunt, underlining the gap in performance between the two drivers. At Bristol, Logano qualified 20th while Blaney took pole. At Darlington, Logano finished three laps down without incident, the only driver in that position.
- As of early May 2026, Joey Logano has recorded three finishes of 30th or worse in succession. A DNF at the Würth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway, triggered by a pit road collision with Cole Custer, pushed him down to 17th in the standings, outside a provisional playoff spot.
- Ford, too, has been off the pace. The manufacturer has managed one win, trailing Chevrolet with three and Toyota with seven, leaving Logano and the No. 22 team with work to do if they are to turn the tide.
