𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Everything seemingly lined up for Team Penske in the closing laps of Sunday’s pivotal semifinals round playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.

On a type of track where teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are so often at their best, their teamwork so often in sync to the point that their cars can appear linked together, there Blaney sat in second, Logano third, nose-to-tail. To hold a clear advantage at Talladega is rare, yet these are the cards Penske held, positioning itself to put one of the two drivers into victory lane and the Championship 4 finale, where they’d be the favorite, while the other would have a points haul that made it easier to manage next week’s elimination race at Martinsville Speedway.

Sixteen laps later, the winning hand Penske seemingly held proved to be anything but. Logano finished 16th, Blaney 23rd, and neither of them factored in the outcome.

“I can’t believe it,” Blaney said over the radio, one lap short of the race’s scheduled distance. “I mean, we had the control of this f— race and somehow gave it away. I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

The winner Sunday was Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe, who clinched a spot in Championship 4, virtually ensuring that only one Penske driver will advance to the title finale. And that is a best-case scenario. The reality is both Logano (minus 38 points below the cutoff) and Blaney (minus 47 points) are in a must-win position entering next week.

Team Penske was left to ponder why a promising day went south and the stark realization that a playoff that began with a good chance of winning a fourth consecutive Cup Series championship for the team now faces a big climb to even have a driver advance past the semifinals.

“Martinsville’s not a bad track for us,” Logano said. “We just have a simple point of view at this point, it’s all or nothing. Stage points aren’t going to matter. Nothing else is going to matter but winning.”

“We know what we gotta do now.”@joeylogano had the most laps led with 35, but will head to @MartinsvilleSwy -38 to the cutline. pic.twitter.com/5yVcNmSIcg

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 19, 2025

The turning point on Sunday came on that restart with 17 laps left, the one where it felt as if Penske was poised to seize firm control of the race, a sequence that later had both Blaney and Logano exasperated.

Not only were Blaney and Logano aligned together in the inside lane as they came to the start-finish to take the green flag, directly behind them were Ford teammates Brad Keselowski and Ryan Preece. Conventional wisdom suggested that with Keselowski and Preece out of the playoffs and driving for the same manufacturer as the Penske duo, they would do everything they could to help push the Penske guys forward.

Except it never happened. And the why depends on whom you ask.

“The car behind me (Keselowski’s) was saving gas, that didn’t help us and killed the whole bottom lane,” Logano said. “Cars were pulling in front of us and we were just getting demoted from the first two cars in line to the back of the line. … We just keep getting demoted from the first two cars to third in line, fourth in line. Then, next thing you know we’re all in the back.”

Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney led the field for part of Sunday’s race, making it look for a time like another Penske car was headed to the Championship 4. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

Said Blaney: “Not the finish we wanted. We didn’t do what we needed to do, and we didn’t get help when we needed it. Now we have to go win next week.”

Keselowski’s crew chief, Jeremy Bullins, told The Athletic that Keselowski was not saving fuel over the closing laps.

Penske competition director Travis Geisler noted after the race it was too soon to say exactly why the Blaney-Logano combination couldn’t work its typical superspeedway magic as the team needed to do a full review of data and video analysis.

“Today was a pretty unique day,” Geisler said. “There were a lot of different lane choices going on, a lot of different scenarios taking place that maybe you don’t typically see here. So go back, rewatch it, get smarter and try to come back and … figure out how to do this good enough to get in the winner’s circle.”

Whatever the reason, Penske’s bid for a fourth consecutive Cup championship — Logano won in 2022 and 2024, and Blaney in 2023 — is nearing an end, unless Logano or Blaney win at Martinsville. Blaney has won the past two playoff Martinsville races, and did so last year in a “must-win” position.

However, in the aftermath of a stinging Talladega defeat, Blaney is taking nothing for granted about how he’ll perform at Martinsville.

“So what, we’ve won there twice,” he said. “(You) never know what’s going to happen year after year. People have been saying, ‘Oh, Blaney is going to win Martinsville, easy.’ It’s bulls–. It’s hard. I don’t know what speed we’re going to have.

“It’s nice that we’ve won there a couple times, but yeah, we got to dig down deep for this one.”

That Penske’s title hopes are now on the ropes is a boon to its competition, who consider the team the favorite should they advance to the Championship 4. That Penske may not make it that far in the playoffs wasn’t lost on Briscoe following his win on Sunday.

“Truthfully, I’ll be rooting that a Penske car doesn’t win,” Briscoe said, smiling. “I think all of those that are in the finals will be doing that.”