Penske Trio Stays Afloat In Cup Title Race After Charlotte

Ryan Blaney led the Team Penske trio of drivers in finishing position at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (John Harrelson/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

By Justin Glenn, SWN Staff Writer

CONCORD, N.C. (Oct. 12, 2026) – One of Team Penske’s goals this postseason was to improve on 1.5-mile tracks and not free fall in the championship standings during the track type’s three-week stretch. 

Veterans Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano do mathematically remain alive in the title fight, as Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway marked the end of the intermediate run. And Austin Cindric, who was an odds-on title longshot, has statistically been the NASCAR Cup Series Chase’s most improved driver. 

In the Bank of America 400, Blaney finished third despite an early speeding penalty, Logano came home ninth after minor stage one front end damage, and Cindric was 17th, but had strong stage efforts. 

“[The No. 12 team] did a great job in getting our car better. Even from the first run before my speeding penalty, we dropped hard to start,” said Blaney. “We had to drive from the back to get to 10th before the stage [one] end. We then settled in the top five after that. I just didn’t feel like I had the pace to hang with [frontrunners Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe]. 

“At the beginning of runs, they would get out front and I would start to close the gap. It wasn’t enough to make up for what they had,” he continued. “Proud of our day after the mistake I made. Proud of the last two weeks, we needed to get better at the mile-and-a-halves, we were able to do that. Three solid finishes.. [we’re] sticking in there, but have to keep going to work.”

Blaney is seeded fifth, 85 points behind championship leader Kyle Larson, and Logano is 92 points down in sixth with four races to go. 

At Charlotte, all three Penske drivers ranked inside the top 12 on speed. Blaney led four laps, and he and Cindric combined for 22 stage points. It was the icing on the cake to a lineup of Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte — all high-speed ovals — that Penske improved on.  

Prior to Sept. 27 at Kansas, the trio had an average finish of 17th place on intermediates. That metric jumped to a combined eighth place. Seven top 10s and 52 laps led were able to keep the organization afloat.

Joe Gibbs Racing has won three out of four postseason intermediate races so far, with the Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway finale still to come, but the Ford powerhouse didn’t make it easy. 

Part of that came from Austin Cindric, whose average finish was third over the past two weeks, prior to a disappointing 17th at Charlotte. The 28-year-old began the Chase seeded 15th in points, and six races later he sits eighth. 

“It’s a shame that our final run of the [Charlotte] race went the way it did,” said Cindric, referring to a hard handling fall off from what was a top-10 day. “It was pretty uncharacteristic from the other portions of the race. That last run was by far our worst. But we still got some solid points.”  

It isn’t the heater Chase Briscoe is on with consecutive wins. But Penske set the postseason bar to take the charge to Toyota on intermediates and maximize opportunities at statistical favored tracks. 

They did that, but despite company improvements, the sense of urgency to win remains. 

“We’ve got to win now, we’re 92 back. We’ve got to do some special stuff from here on out to make up the points,” said Logano. “We were ninth, maybe we could’ve been top five-ish if I didn’t have the damage. It could’ve been worse, but we just didn’t get any stage points, that's the worst part.” 

What helps Penske is that their gray area of the postseason slate is over. Phoenix Raceway Oct. 18, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway Oct. 25 and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway Nov. 1 — two short tracks and a superspeedway — are ahead before the Homestead finale on Nov. 8.  

Since 2023, Blaney has four wins at Martinsville and Phoenix, with average finishes of fourth and fifth. He has won the last two Phoenix races, with the latest on March 22.

Logano has just four finishes at Martinsville outside the top 10 since 2014. At Phoenix, Logano won two championships, but also qualified on pole in March. 

It’s unlikely Cindric reaches Larson from 145 back for the title, but is riding the best stretch of his career with a seven-spot climb in the standings. Talladega’s results are not predictable with a new 3.5-inch rear spoiler package debuting. But, all three Penske drivers have won at the 2.66-mile track in the past.

Eighty-five plus points is steep for Blaney and Logano, especially with the way Larson and Joe Gibbs Racing have performed this postseason. However, the field has seen what Penske could do when hot and riding the wave of its 'bread and butter’ races.

They have three races ahead of the finale to be in striking range of the lead come Homestead. Over the summer at short tracks and superspeedways, Penske won four races and led nearly 1,000 laps. 

“We go into every weekend thinking we could win. Phoenix has been good to us. I don’t know what will happen at Talladega, no one does, then we have Martinsville and Miami,” said Blaney. “The best thing we can do is take one race at a time, do our job the best that we can and hopefully we can find victory lane a couple more times. Looking forward to next week.”

Coverage of the Freeway Insurance 500 from Phoenix is slated for Sunday, Oct. 18 at 3 p.m. ET on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

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