said<\/a><\/strong> in Saturday\u2019s post-race media session. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously really good. You saw that again tonight and had put himself in position and basically ran up front all night.\u201d<\/p>\nNelson isn\u2019t just talking up Logano from a corporate standpoint. As Team Penske\u2019s president of NASCAR Operations, Nelson has seen a lot of drivers in that era. And in five of those seasons, the champion who emerged was a Penske driver: Logano (thrice), Blaney (once) and Brad Keselowski (once).<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not forget crew chief Paul Wolfe<\/p>\n
And Logano has a secret weapon who really isn\u2019t so secret. His crew chief, Paul Wolfe, has been on the pit box for Logano\u2019s championships in 2022 and 2024, as well as Keselowski back in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat team is experienced, they\u2019re capable, they\u2019ve been through this before,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cI think that really is a feather in their cap going into the playoffs is they\u2019ve been there and done it before, so they have confidence that they can get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure, Logano finished 27th Saturday at Daytona due to being involved in a last lap wreck, but he qualified fourth and, like Nelson said, the Connecticut native was up front for much of the 160-lap event.<\/p>\n
Logano\u2019s fortunes are primed to change and there\u2019s precedent to back up that statement. Heading into last year\u2019s playoffs, Logano had just one win, just like he has this year. But then Logano went on to win three of the playoff races, including the championship race at Phoenix.<\/p>\n
So if you\u2019ve already written Logano off, you really should reconsider. He\u2019s not a three-time Cup champion for nothing, the only active driver who has more than two Cup crowns (the driver with two Cup titles is Kyle Busch).<\/p>\n
Logano admittedly has had a rough season to date. He\u2019s recorded three DNFs, all due to crashes. He has an average finish of 17.0 (and an average start of 13.0). That certainly is not championship caliber, at least statistically.<\/p>\n
Sure, Logano\u2019s finish at Daytona did little to give him momentum heading into the playoffs, but he\u2019s a driver that creates his own momentum, and does that in the playoffs. Consider this fact: since 2014, he\u2019s recorded three championships, one runner-up, one third-place finish, a fourth-place finish and a fifth place showing.<\/p>\n
And during that same period, he\u2019s failed to finish out of the top 10 in final season standings just twice.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s another stat to mull over: in the years he finished outside the top 10 (17th in 2017 and 12th in 2023), he rallied in the following season to win the championship in 2018 and 2024. That\u2019s huge!<\/p>\n
Logano could be the most dangerous driver in the playoffs<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s any driver who could be considered the most dangerous individual among the 16 drivers that qualified for the playoffs, it\u2019s definitely Logano. He knows what needs to be done.<\/p>\n
And we\u2019ll leave you with one last Logano stat that no other 2025 playoff driver can match. At the upcoming 10 tracks, Logano<\/a><\/strong> has won a combined 19 Cup Series races, just over half his career win tally of 37. If that\u2019s not an advantage for Logano, nothing is. He knows how to win there, including four times each at Phoenix and Las Vegas and three times each at Bristol, Talladega, and Kansas.<\/p>\nSome fans may consider Logano a sleeper in this year\u2019s playoffs, but if there are any rival drivers who think they can take a nap around Logano, they\u2019re likely going to be sorely mistaken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following NASCAR as a fan, a reporter or even a member of another team can be a conundrum.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-173271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115087170822946700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}