Start: 23rd
Finish: 4th

Stage One: 14th
Stage Two: 10th

Points: 10th

Despite starting 23rd in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, Joey Logano gained track position on the field in the opening laps by forcing three-wide situations to race his way into the top-15 in the latter stages of Stage 1. Logano battled a tight-handling condition throughout the opening stage but came away with a 14th-place finish in the 70-lap segment to begin the afternoon. Following a four-tire stop with a round of adjustments at the stage break, Logano broke into the top-10 on lap 85 just eight laps after the restart before settling into ninth in the running order during the first green flag run of Stage 2. As green flag pit stops began to cycle, Logano brought the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang to pit road while running fourth and cycled back to ninth once the cycle was complete. After another green flag pit cycle shuffled Logano out of the top-10, Logano battled to pick up a stage point by working his way around the No. 3 with seven laps to go in the stage to come away with a 10th-place finish in Stage 2. As the balance started to settle in, Logano settled into eighth on the leaderboard to begin the final stage and held his position for a majority of the run. The No. 22 team’s final green flag stop of the day came on lap 334 for four tires, fuel, and a round of adjustments before cycling back to eighth in the running order. The first caution for an on-track incident came with 10 laps remaining, bringing the leaders to pit road for their final service of the afternoon. Logano lined up on the outside of row four and immediately went up the race track to run three-wide heading into turn one, a move that saw him vault from seventh to third with three laps to go. Logano battled to make his way to the front in the closing laps but settled for a fourth-place finish, marking his 13th-career top-five at Richmond and his seventh top-10 in his last nine races at the Virginia short track.

“I thought our Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang was pretty good all day, really. We just needed to get there and execute our race a little bit better. Execute in qualifying, execute on pit road a little bit better to maximize our day. I had a good restart there at the end and was able to roll a couple of rows on the top there. To see third place for a half a second – almost second when the No. 11 lost the corner into [turn] one – but [Hamlin] got back to my outside and got me back. I could see the lead, I got excited, but just another top-five here at Richmond. It’s been a really solid race track for us. We’ve been able to click off a lot of top-fives here recently. We’re pretty much machines here. We just have to get it into victory lane a little bit more.”

 

WHAT’S NEXT: The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, August 6 for the FireKeepers Casino 400. Coverage begins at 2:30 pm E.T. on USA, MRN and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.