NASCAR: Joey Logano wins his third Cup Series title with a victory at Phoenix

Joey Logano is a three-time Cup Series champion.

Logano took the lead from William Byron shortly after the NASCAR Cup Series championship race’s final restart on lap 260 and led the rest of the way at Phoenix as he held off his Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney in the final laps.

“What a race, what a Team Penske battle at the end,” Logano said after climbing from his car.

Logano’s third title puts him in exclusive NASCAR company. Just 10 drivers have won three or more Cup Series titles. Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson all have seven. Jeff Gordon has four titles. And now Logano is tied with Lee Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip and Tony Stewart at three.

Logano’s title continues what has been a remarkable even-year streak. You should pencil him in for the 2026 Cup Series title. Logano’s previous titles came in 2018 and 2022 when he won the season finales. He has also made the Championship 4 in every even-numbered year since NASCAR instituted its final race winner-take-all playoff format in 2014.

“I don’t know if I’m the best driver, but I have the best team,” Logano said.

Blaney quickly caught Logano after he passed William Byron for second but was unable to get to Logano’s bumper to attempt a pass inside the final 10 laps of the 312-lap race.

Logano started the race in second and led the second-most laps of any driver. Christopher Bell led a race-high 143 laps but Logano led 107 and clearly had the best car among the four drivers racing for the title.

All four of those drivers finished in the top six. Byron was third and Tyler Reddick finished sixth. In between them, Kyle Larson finished fourth and Bell was fifth.

The race featured just four caution flags and two of those were for stage breaks. The first came right after the race began when Ty Gibbs clipped the wall and then something broke before he slammed into the wall on the frontstretch. The second came ahead of the final restart when Zane Smith crashed on lap 249.

The most bizarre moment of the day came when the pace car brought out a red flag that lasted less than six minutes. As the race was set to begin the second stage, the pace car went to pit road too late and slammed into the sand barrels at the beginning of pit road. NASCAR officials had to red flag the race to clean up the sand that was spilled in front of pit road.

How Logano won the title

Let’s be real, Logano and his No. 22 team were far from the best in 2024. Though he won four races, Logano’s average finish of 17.6 ranked 15th among full-time Cup Series drivers and he had just 12 top-10 finishes. Thirteen drivers had more, including three drivers who failed to make the playoffs.

But Logano and his team got three of those four wins when they needed to. A victory in a chaotic race at Nashville over the summer clinched a spot in the playoffs for the team. Logano then won the playoff opener at Atlanta to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

The second round wasn’t pretty, but Logano advanced to the third round with an eighth-place finish at the Charlotte Roval and then won the first race of the third round at Las Vegas to qualify for the title race.

Race results

1. Joey Logano

2. Ryan Blaney

3. William Byron

4. Kyle Larson

5. Christopher Bell

6. Tyler Reddick

7. Bubba Wallace

8. Chase Elliott

9. Chris Buescher

10. Daniel Suarez

11. Denny Hamlin

12. Noah Grayson

13. Austin Cindric

14. Alex Bowman

15. Brad Keselowski

16. Harrison Burton

17. Martin Truex Jr.

18. Carson Hocevar

19. Ross Chastain

20. Todd Gilliland

21. Kyle Busch

22. Erik Jones

23. Daniel Henric

24. Josh Berry

25. Derek Kraus

26. Jimmie Johnson

27. Austin Dillon

28. Justin Haley

29. Chase Briscoe

30. John Hunter Nemechek

31. Michael McDowell

32. Corey LaJoie

33. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

24. Kaz Grala

35. JJ Yeley

36. Chad Finchum

37. Ryan Preece

38. Jeb Burton

39. Zane Smith

40. Ty Gibbs