Up to Speed: Will Brickyard 400 Results Stall Team Penske’s Momentum?

If you review the race-by-race results of the last two Cup Series seasons, you might be surprised to see that Team Penske won the championship both times, even though Hendrick Motorsports won the most races.

In 2022, Hendrick won 11 races as an organization. However, Penske’s Joey Logano came alive at the right time, scoring two wins in the last four races of the year to win his second Cup Series title.

Last season followed the same pattern.

Hendrick drivers won five races by the halfway point of the regular season. While other teams showed flashes of brilliance, everyone else was a step behind. Yet the playoffs brought another surprise. Ryan Blaney put together the best postseason run of his career, shaking off some early troubles to earn two wins and no finishes worse than 12th in the final six races. His efforts earned Penske a second consecutive title.

This season, once again, saw Hendrick take an early advantage. The Penske drivers, and Ford as a whole, mostly struggled. Logano was either getting caught up in crashes or battling ill-handling cars. Blaney was having more success running up front and leading laps, but wins always seemed to slip away from the No. 12 team’s grasp. Austin Cindric, the other Penske driver, was struggling just to crack the top 20 in points. It looked like Team Penske had a long road ahead if it wanted another championship in 2024.

When the summer began, momentum shifted in The Captain’s favor. The first driver to break out was Cindric, who scored a surprise victory at World Wide Technology Raceway when Blaney’s fuel tank ran dry coming to the white flag. Two weeks later, Blaney rolled to a dominant win at Iowa Speedway, punching his ticket to the postseason.

Penske then capped off June with a win by Logano at Nashville Superspeedway, who survived five overtime attempts and a bone-dry fuel tank to take the checkered flag. Logano’s victory made Penske the first organization to secure wins with all its drivers in 2024.

Suddenly, Penske was back on the map.

As the Penske drivers began to hit their stride, Hendrick was cooling off.

William Byron won three times in the first eight races of the season, but none since. Chase Elliott has remained the most consistent driver in the Cup Series, but his breakthrough win at Texas Motor Speedway in April did not open the floodgates for more victories.

Alex Bowman’s up-and-down season got a big boost with a win in the Chicago Street Race, but the No. 48 team remains a bit of a wildcard week-to-week. Even Kyle Larson’s playoff hopes were in peril after a rain delay in the Indianapolis 500 caused him to miss the Coca-Cola 600. However, following a waiver from NASCAR and a win at Sonoma Raceway, the No. 5 team was back in business. 

Even so, Penske appeared to have hit on something in the second half of the regular season. Blaney’s win at Pocono Raceway kept the good vibes going and this past weekend’s trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the revived Brickyard 400 was another great opportunity for Blaney or Logano to score a win in their team owner’s house. Such a win would have served notice to the competition that Penske was gearing up for another strong postseason run.

Instead, it was Larson in victory lane, and now the Penske drivers will go into the Olympics break wondering how this one slipped away. Blaney and Logano had good strategy and positioned themselves to race for the win heading into the third stage. Cindric fell behind early but recovered and stayed in the hunt. Yet things began to unravel on lap 110 when Logano got spun into the turn 1 wall.

Although it was Carson Hocevar who hit the No. 22, replays revealed that contact between Hocevar and Blaney was what caused Hocevar to get out of shape in the first place.

Blaney was left standing as Penske’s biggest threat to win and he spent most of the closing laps riding behind leader Brad Keselowski while trying to save fuel. Larson was back in the pack with fresher tires and a greater fuel load, but he carved his way to the front of the field as everyone around him tried to save gas. The finish was setting up to be a showdown between Keselowski, Blaney, and Larson, but a caution with three laps to go set up an overtime finish.

Once the race restarted, everything seemed to fall Larson’s way. First, Keselowski ran out of fuel approaching the restart, allowing Larson to move up to the front row beside Blaney. By rule, Blaney was the leader and should have restarted the race first, though in the confusion of the moment it was not clear if he or Larson hit the gas first once they got to the restart zone. Regardless, Larson got away with the lead when a big crash in turn 1 put the race under red flag.

The second overtime attempt featured a baffling late caution from NASCAR.

After Ryan Preece spun on the backstretch, the No. 41 briefly got rolling but was unable to move anywhere safe due to multiple flat tires. Although NASCAR had a clear chance to call a caution before Larson took the white flag, race control did not react until the field was heading for turn 2 on the final lap. The ensuing yellow flag ended the race under caution and secured the victory for Larson. Blaney settled for third with Cindric finishing seventh.

Missing out on a win at the Brickyard could stall Team Penske’s momentum. Blaney remains one of the hottest drivers in the Cup Series, and you can never count Logano out of the championship battle, but Indianapolis felt like a reminder to the Penske drivers that they are still going to face some tough competition from HMS. As much as NASCAR deserves criticism for the ending of the race, Larson clearly had the best car in the closing laps, and it seems doubtful that he would have lost even if there had been another restart. Now, Larson has four wins on the season, the same number as all the Penske drivers combined.  

Blaney’s and Logano’s playoff runs were so impressive because of how much they stepped up their performance with a title on the line.

The 2024 Cup Series postseason is still four races away and there is plenty of opportunity left for a driver from Team Penske, HMS, or anywhere else to hit their competitive peak. If Penske emerges victorious in the playoffs, no one will remember the disappointment in Indianapolis. But if any of the Hendrick drivers, especially Larson, win the championship, Penske will be reminded of the one that got away at the Brickyard for a long time.