Team Penske, which has won the past three Cup championships, is without a victory this year as the series heads to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend for the 10th race of the season.
This marks the second year in a row that Team Penske will not have scored its first Cup win of the season before at least the 10th race of the year. Last season, Team Penske’s first Cup victory came in the 15th race of the year when Austin Cindric won at Gateway.
Ryan Blaney enters this weekend sixth in the points, best among the Penske drivers. Joey Logano is ninth and Cindric is 22nd. The three drivers have combined to lead 54.6% of the laps at drafting tracks (Daytona and Atlanta) this season.
“Certainly we’ve lacked execution,” Travis Geisler, Team Penske vice president of competition, told NBC Sports after the Bristol race earlier this month. “I think (Blaney’s) team has been capable of winning a fair number of races here and we just haven’t executed. We’ve had some issues outside of our control, some of them in our control, and we just have to clean all of that up.
“I actually feel like this is probably the fastest we’ve started a season in a while. If you look at most of the races, we’ve had a really good shot. Aside from (Bristol) and COTA, we probably could have won any of the races. I think that’s what you’ve got to focus on, and I think we’ve done a good job of coming out a little stronger, which is part of the goal to be able to get some bonus points. We just haven’t executed to get it done (in winning).”
Blaney has a series-best 92 stage points. Logano ranks fifth in the series with 70 stage points. Cindric is eighth in the series with 57 stage points.
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Blaney had the dominant car at Homestead, leading 124 of the first 161 laps before his engine blew — one of two blown engines he’s had this year. At Darlington, Blaney led coming to pit road before the overtime restart but exited fourth. He finished that race fifth.
Blaney’s team has a new front tire changer listed on its roster for this weekend’s race at Talladega. Keiston Price is listed as the new front tire changer, replacing Ryan Flores, who takes Price’s spot with the No. 38 car of Zane Smith.
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As for how the teams of Cindric and Logano have done this season, Geisler said: “I think (Cindric’s) team is doing what they need to be doing right now. I think those guys are in a decent spot and kind of trying to figure out how to be there every week. I think there are certain tracks where they’ve been strong and then there’s been some where they’ve been pretty weak. I think they’re starting to balance that out a little bit now and getting to be a little more even-keeled, which is a goal for any kind of new group.
“Obviously (Logano’s team) needs to produce a little bit more. We’ve been struggling there. Again, we’ve had some races where they’ve been really good and we haven’t been able to execute and get good finishes. In general, we just need a little more pace. That car hasn’t had enough speed.”
Logano became the first reigning Cup champion to not score a top-10 finish in the first six races of the following season.
Logano started second at Phoenix but a restart violation early in the race forced the team to change strategy and use its option tires differently than most teams. He finished 13th there. Logano led at Las Vegas but lost it on pit road with 22 laps to go due to a slow pit stop. “I just made a mistake on pit road that I wish I could have back,” Logano said after that race.
Cindric led the Daytona 500 to begin the final lap, lost the lead on the backstretch and was collected in a crash, finishing eighth.
Cindric led the following weekend at Atlanta three laps from the scheduled distance before Kyle Larson got underneath him. As they raced off Turn 2, Larson came up the track and Cindric hit the wall and crashed.
Cindric won a stage at Las Vegas but had to pit a second time for a potential loose wheel. He recovered to finish sixth, his best result of the season.
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