Joey Logano’s championship history had fans believing the even-year trend could work in his favor again in 2026. The Team Penske star lifted the Cup Series trophy in 2018, 2022 and 2024, giving supporters another reason to back him this season. He even reignited his title hopes with a Bristol victory in the Chase in September after a difficult start to the year.
But a costly stretch afterward, as recent as Charlotte, has put the No. 22 Ford back on the defensive. With four races left, Logano admits he may need at least two wins to pull off another championship comeback.
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“So, uh, again, at this point, I feel like we, we, uh, we gotta win at least two of the next four, maybe, maybe more to, to pull this one off. So, uh, yeah, which we can. You know, I feel like we got a lot of good race tracks ahead of us, so still a positive attitude on it, that we can still do it. It’s just gotten a little bit harder than what we needed,” Logano said after a disappointing Charlotte result.
Joey Logano knows what it takes to win a NASCAR Cup Series championship, but his latest admission shows how quickly his title hopes are becoming a difficult proposition. The three-time champion still believes Team Penske can pull off a comeback, yet the No. 22 Ford needs more than steady top-10 finishes to close the gap. With four races remaining, Logano is running out of opportunities to make up ground on Kyle Larson.
Charlotte did little to help his cause. Logano finished ninth in the Bank of America 400, but he failed to score stage points and lost two positions in the Chase standings. Larson, meanwhile, finished sixth after leading 97 laps and collecting 17 stage points. The Hendrick Motorsports driver extended his championship advantage, leaving Logano sixth and 92 points behind with the season nearing its conclusion. Logano had hoped to leave the three-race intermediate-track stretch roughly 60 points off the lead. Instead, he emerged in a considerably deeper hole.
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The setback followed an uneven run through the Chase. At Kansas, Logano started from the pole but suffered a late right-front tire failure that sent him tumbling to 20th. He then finished 10th at Las Vegas before coming up short of a major points haul at Charlotte. Those results were not disastrous individually, but they were costly against a leader who continued to score heavily even when he did not win. Logano needs to turn his speed into a much bigger points return, and he needs to do it immediately.
There was a time when a comeback seemed much more realistic. Logano won at Bristol in September, earning his first Chase victory of the season and climbing to third in the standings, just 16 points behind Larson. That breakthrough showed the No. 22 team could still deliver when the pressure was on. But the Kansas tire failure and the results that followed erased much of that progress, pushing him back into a desperate chase for points.
That being said, Logano has already demonstrated that he can recover from a difficult season. After finishing 24th at Sonoma in June, he dropped to 20th in the regular-season standings, with only two top-five finishes through the first 18 races. He then turned his campaign around, winning at North Wilkesboro, Richmond, and Bristol to strengthen his position and reach the Chase.
Now he needs a similar surge, but the clock is ticking. Chase Briscoe has shown what an aggressive points run can accomplish. He scored 75 points at Las Vegas after sweeping both stages and winning the race, then followed it with another victory at Charlotte. In two weeks, Briscoe cut his deficit to Larson from 123 points to 65.
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That is the kind of momentum Logano needs: not merely finishing ahead of the leader, but winning races, collecting stage points and taking advantage of every opportunity to create a substantial swing.
The remaining schedule gives Logano some reasons for optimism. Phoenix is next, a track where he has won four times in his career. Talladega follows, where the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing can produce major points swings, before the series visits Martinsville and Homestead-Miami. Logano has won at Phoenix and Martinsville, while Homestead presents another chance to capitalize on a track where execution and long-run speed will matter. But past success alone cannot close the gap.
Logano remains positive, and his earlier recovery proves he should not be written off. Yet he knows the task has changed. To keep his championship hopes alive, the No. 22 team must produce race-winning performances and points hauls approaching the 75-point days Briscoe has delivered. With only four races left, another ordinary Sunday could make the climb too steep to finish.
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