Joey Logano and the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion team started from the pole, lead a bunch of laps early and then came back from an ill-handling car to finish fifth in Sunday’s rain-delayed NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Richmond International Raceway. Logano grabbed his 11th-career pole and third of the season on Friday afternoon in qualifying, the most of any driver this season. When the green flag flew, Logano jumped out to the early lead on the “green” racetrack and set sail, leading the first 94 laps and holding point through the competition caution at lap 50. When Logano fell back through the field, his Ford Fusion became tight center and loose off. It was a handling condition that he and crew chief Todd Gordon would fight all day long. Logano found himself struggling in the middle portion of a run, but as laps got on the tires, the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil car came to life. With less than 40 laps to go, Logano had an amazing restart from the seventh position, going three wide on the apron to grab fifth, where he would ride out the rest of the afternoon. The fifth-place finish was Logano’s fifth top-five of the year. He remains second in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings, 33 points behind leader Kevin Harvick.

“We were good on the short run and then after about 10 to 12 laps, we started losing speed and losing the center really, losing the turn. Those guys would start driving away and then really late before a green flag pit stop everyone’s tires would be burned off enough that I could start catching back up but I could never catch back up what we lost. Those late race restarts helped a lot and we were able to be aggressive and got a couple spots and came home for a top-five. Overall a top-five is nice. It looked like we were probably a seventh- or eighth-place car, so we got a little more out of it and we will work on it for the fall.”