Joey Logano and Team Penske seem to have found the secret sauce for success in NASCAR’s Next Gen era. Starting off the decade, Logano won the title in 2022, and his teammate Ryan Blaney continued the good run in 2023. Luck can favor a team once or twice, but by doing it three years in a row, they are definitely doing something right. However, Logano’s 2024 NASCAR Cup Series triumph wasn’t received well by the racing community. Many even labelled the Penske star as the most undeserving champ in the Championship 4 era. The basic argument the critics posted online was that he wasn’t the most consistent driver throughout the year. Had it not been for the controversial format and knockout stages, Logano wouldn’t be the champ.

Well, not everyone is in favor of this argument. Veteran NASCAR driver Rick Mast had a contrasting opinion on the same, as he sided with Logano. Not only that, he also revealed the secrets of why Team Penske has been able to dominate the Cup Series in recent times.

Joey Logano deserves more credit for his clutch moments during the title run

Now it is indeed difficult for fans to digest that a driver with an average finish of 17 was able to clinch the championship in 2024. To add more fuel to the fire was the fact that Logano wouldn’t even be in the picture had it not been for Alex Bowman’s suspension at Charlotte Roval. But he started off the playoffs with a win at Atlanta, then won at Las Vegas. With a two-week window, the #22 team had enough time to prepare for the finale. And the rest is history.

Now there’s a clear pattern with how Team Penske seems to have optimized their resources and efforts into preparing for the clutch event. This is what Mast feels has helped them to continue their dominant run every season. “If I was into the sport right now and I was a car owner, crew chief, or engineer, I would be looking at this points structure; I would look at the last few races of the year and what’s on the schedule. The money races, that’s the last few races; that’s the championship races. My whole goal would be to make my car fast at those racetracks.” Mast said this while speaking on Kenny Conversation.

There is a clear pattern here. In the last four races that build up to the championship race in Phoenix, both Blaney and Logano stepped up their game. In 2022, Joey Logano won in Las Vegas and then sealed the deal in Phoenix, and he did the same this year. Meanwhile, Blaney has been even better. In his title-winning year, he had two runner-up finishes and a win in the last three races, and while he was successful in repeating this good run this season, he was outplayed by his teammate at the final race.

While every team in the Cup garage knows the format, only Team Penske has been able to crack the code to consistently be successful. “I truly believe that’s what Penske does, they look at those last racetracks and work all year towards what we can do to make our cars good at those racetracks. You take that with Joey stepping it up, and Blaney steps it up; everybody steps up. When you got a good thing going with your team and the driver and the car is working good. And that seems to be what goes on with the Penske organization at the championship title,” Mast added.

Logano wasn’t alone in facing the flak from the NASCAR community; his team owner, Roger Penske, was standing right behind him.

Team Penske is only playing by the rules

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Roger Penske has been around the sport for a long time and has seen multiple changes made to the points system. In the Next Gen era, all you need to win a single race to more or less secure your playoff spot. Going by the current trends of NASCAR Cup racing, it’s fair to say Team Penske has cracked the code to success.

The likes of Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Chase Elliott were consistent for the majority of the 2024 season. But they hit the bumps at the business end of the season, while the Penske drivers continued to work on their blueprint. Before heading into the NASCAR Awards, the veteran owner shared his thoughts on the current format.

“Well, I would say this: we all signed up for a points system at the beginning of the year, didn’t we? And that’s what we operate on. We’ve been around when there’s been changes many different times, and I think we’ll let NASCAR take that one, and if they think they need changing, fine… People can say what they want about the system; we have a winner in the Shell Pennzoil car, our driver Logano, and the second-place finisher was Blaney. So I guess we figured it out.”

The current format certainly can do with some changes to make the format more appealing and competitive. However, it is indeed hard to disregard the clutch performances by the Penske team when it matters the most.