“You start to question everything”

NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano had quite a dismal outing at Darlington last week. He ran outside of the top 30 all day and finished 33rd. All things considered, Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville went well for the Mustang maestro.

Logano earned a P9 qualifying spot for the 400-mile event. By the end of Stage 1, he was running seventh. And by the end of Stage 2, the driver was running third behind the Joe Gibbs Racing duo of Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs.

By the end of the race, Logano bounced back to a P3 finish and matched his best performance of the 2026 season (Daytona 500). It was also his 13th consecutive top-10 finish at the 0.526-mile racetrack in Virginia.

“Yeah, solid rebound for everybody,” Joey Logano told reporter Jamie Little after exiting his car. “And, you know, it’s a track we expect to be good at when we come here to Martinsville. And I’m glad to see that, you know, weekends like last weekend, you start to question everything… As a competitor, you have to do that.”

“Proud of the team. Good stage points, which we needed in both stages, and a solid third place,” he added.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott won the race with a 0.565-second lead. The top five spots were rounded out by Denny Hamlin, Logano, Ty Gibbs, and Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron. His other teammate, Kyle Larson, came in ninth, marking his fourth top-10 of the season.

Logano jumped four spots in the overall championship standings, with an 18-point advantage on the provisional cutline. The Team Penske standout sits 12th in points with a pair of top-fives and a pair of top-10s.

Kevin Harvick reacts to Joey Logano’s lacklustre Darlington outing

Retired NASCAR driver and former Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick reacted to Joey Logano’s run in last Sunday’s race at Darlington Raceway, which Tyler Reddick won. After struggling all day, Logano had to settle for a disappointing P34 finish.

On the other hand, Logano’s teammates Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric finished third and fifth, respectively. One might wonder what caused Logano to fall so far behind his Penske teammates, especially when all of them were practically driving the same Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

However, Kevin Harvick wasn’t surprised at all. Addressing Logano’s dismal Darlington outing, the Bakersfield, California, native said on his “Happy Hour Podcast”:

“It is so easy, especially in a situation where you have a new rules package at a place that is so tough. I know this is the third race that we’ve run with those rules, but Darlington is just such a beast as far as the racetrack itself and trying to get the car to drive right.”

“You have to do so many things that are different than at all the other racetracks in order to get the car to stay underneath you,” he added.

Next up for Joey Logano is the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Scheduled for April 12, the 500-lap event will be televised live on FS1, with live radio updates on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.