Joey Logano admits this is ‘toughest start’ to a season in his career after Phoenix DNF

There is no way to sugarcoat it, 2024 has been a nightmare of a NASCAR season so far for Joey Logano and the 22 team of Team Penske in the Cup Series. Two DNFs, three finishes of P28 or worse, and an average finish of worse than P25 in the first four races of the year leave Logano in a points hole early.

Sitting at 30th overall in the points standings, Logano has only earned 51 total points in four races. He has been involved in a wreck in three of four weeks. His one clean race, Las Vegas, ended with a P9 finish.

It isn’t like Joey Lognao has been slow. Team Penske has not been slow. Ryan Blaney is first in the points and has three top-5 finishes. Austin Cindric is 15th overall in the points and has a top-5 finish of his own.

Talking to the media after a tire test at North Wilkesboro this week, Logano opened up about his struggles.

“It’s definitely the toughest start of a season I’ve ever had,” Logano said, via NASCAR.com. “Some of it, out of our control; some of it, in our control, but we just haven’t scored the points. The superspeedways, Atlanta, our cars were really fast. Vegas, we were mediocre. Last week was a struggle.

With that said, the way the races are these days, you can pick that car up, put it fifth, and it’ll probably run fifth. Just we didn’t qualify good enough and stay up there and get up there. And then we got caught up in that crash there with John Hunter. So, just one of those things.

“You hope that it all just comes up in one lump and it’s over for the rest of the season. I don’t know how the averages work out like that, but all we can do is just stay focused in on what we do — keep preparing, keep bringing fast race cars. This is the same team that’s won two championships, the team that knows how to do it. Paul (Wolfe, No. 22 crew chief) knows. We all know, we don’t really have to talk about it a whole bunch. We kind of know the situation, we know who we are, we know we can fight out of it. So, just keep on digging.”

Joey Logano needs to turn things around at Bristol

In his Cup Series career, Joey Logano has a mixed history at Bristol Motor Speedway. With no dirt on the track this week and the return of the Food City 500, it gives drivers a chance to get the job done on the concrete.

Logano has two wins on the Bristol concrete. He hasn’t won there since August of 2015, so it has been quite a while. In his last five starts at the track, he has only a single top-10 finish. Based on the speed of Penske and Logano at Las Vegas under the intermediate package, I think he will have at least good qualifying speed.

There really isn’t a reason to panic right now. To be fair, Logano is good for at least one win a season, and honestly, should be winning 3+ races a year with the talent and equipment that he has. Sometimes in NASCAR, bad luck dominates over speed and skill, though.

Joey Logano has a long season ahead of him to improve, pick up points, and win races. Four races into the season though and things aren’t looking great. Get back on the right track at Bristol, put up a solid race from start to finish and build off of that momentum. Everything else will come.