Folks, there is something wrong with Team Penske. This is the second time in a row where they had a disappointing start to the season. Look at 2024. Yes, Joey Logano was crowned champion at the end of it, and Ryan Blaney was the runner-up. However, the way the season started, Team Penske did not seem like a championship contender. The first race they won last season was Logano taking the checkered flag at the North Wilkesboro All-Star race. And the first points race win came 17 races into the season, with Austin Cindric winning at World Wide Technology Raceway. And this season, it pretty much looks the same. They have the most dominant car on the track so far. 

Moreover, Team Penske is yet to open their winning account among NASCAR’s three big dogs. They have speed in that Ford Mustang, but for some reason, it’s not finishing races in good positions. Well, could it be a Ford problem and not Penske? It’s unlikely. Josh Berry recently won in Las Vegas in a Ford car. And that, too, with a splendid display of speed and consistency. And what’s even more ironic is that the Wood Brothers Racing’s #21 car is built in the Team Penske shop. Also, Chris Buescher (P6) and Ryan Preece (P9) managed to get their Fords in the top 10 at the recent Homestead Miami race. Then why isn’t Team Penske able to do that?

Nuts and bolts of Team Penske coming off?

Folks, look at the current season. We are 6 races in, and the team is struggling to get finishes! Six races mean the three-man team has gotten 18 starts, out of which they have managed to get just one top-5 finish. That was when Ryan Blaney got a P4 in the Atlanta race. And Blaney is currently the highest-ranked Team Penske driver in the points table. He stands in 10th place, thanks to his two top 10s so far. However, Joey Logano hasn’t even had that pleasure once!

Yup. NASCAR’s defending champion hasn’t scored a single top 10 until now. Joey Logano‘s got an average finish of 18.8 so far, and this is feeling like Déjà vu. He had just one win and 4 top 5s in the entire regular season last year. But this season, his stats are more surprising because he’s led most laps in the series so far.

In fact, the whole Team Penske has led the most laps in the season. Logano is first with 247 laps led, Austin Cindric is 159, and Blaney’s led 142 so far and is number three on the grid. Look at this X post from NASCAR Journalist Jeff Gluck:

And the recent Homestead Miami race could have been a redemption for Team Penske. Ryan Blaney led 124 of the 267 laps; he was a contender to win, but his engine blew up, and he got a DNF. And if this was a one-time thing, we could ignore it as bad luck. But the #12 driver has had three back-to-back DNFs.

Something’s clearly not working out for the team and must be fixed quickly. After Homestead, Logano dropped from P8 to P11 and Blaney came down to 10th from P7, while Cindric sits comfortably in P21.

Despite all this, Blaney is still optimistic. “We’ll continue to keep fighting. I appreciate the 12 guys for just giving me a hot rod. It was an incredibly, incredibly fast race car today. We’ll keep our heads up. It’s just one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars and that’s all you can ask for. We’ll keep on moving.”

And this is pretty what everyone in the Penske camp is feeling.

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The team remains positive

Look, it’s just been six races. A lot of racing is still left. And thanks to this format, Team Penske won’t be that worried. They have fast cars, and a win can come out of anywhere. With the ‘win it and you are in’ rule, they’ll always stay in the game. So they are staying optimistic.

Recently, Travis Geisler, Team Penske’s vice president of competition, said, “It’s obviously frustrating to be in a situation where we’ve had really good cars that are capable of winning every week and just haven’t really been able to execute and get it done. But I think the key is the process is working as far as what we’re bringing to the race track. That’s the hardest part of this game, is finding speed. And right now, I think all the teams are doing that. We’ve just got to execute on all the other facets of the game.”

And the next race brings a massive opportunity for Team Penske to get their first this season. After all, Ryan Blaney is the defending winner at Martinsville Speedway. In fact, no team has been as good as Penske at the Track, especially in the next-gen era. Blaney won there twice and got a 3.5 average finish, which is the best among the active drivers. And in second place is Joey Logano with a 5.2 average finish. For the longest time, the #22 driver has been looking for his second win on the track.

However, before the #12 and #22 teams enter Martinsville, they must fix their current issues. Ryan Blaney cannot have another engine blow up. But now, Team Penske has left that on their engine manufacturer to fix.

“From there, you’ve just got to lean on Roush Yates (Engines) and Ford to fix the problem. We have a lot of problems that we need to fix from this weekend, and we’ve got to outsource that one and let somebody else handle it and have the trust that, over the years, they’ve given us incredibly reliable engines and really have delivered for us. And they’ve just got to go the drawing board a little bit here and figure out what’s going on. I think it looks like a couple different modes of failure here, I would say. So maybe there’s not necessarily a clear direction, but that’s up to them,” Geisler added.

And for the #22 team, crew chief Paul Wolfe has hope. He recently said, “Speaking for the 22 group specifically, there’s a lot of experience here, and we’ve shown how we’re able to execute and do the things we need to do. So it’s unfortunate but not really any reason to be concerned. Optimistic about being able to have the speed and (it’s a) much better spot than what we were starting season last year.”

Do you think Team Penske can bounce back at Martinsville? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.