“I just made a mistake”: Joey Logano looks back on disappointing result in Las Vegas

Joey Logano reminisced about the missed opportunity to win the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which took place on the 16th of March. In an interview with tobychristie.com, he admitted to his “mistake.”

Joey Logano, the Team Penske driver, in his final pit stop during the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, made a disastrous error that ended up costing him a chance at victory. As he approached the pit box, Logano failed to hit his pit stop mark properly, which caused his car to be misaligned and pointed too far towards the inside pit wall. This resulted in his pit crew taking longer to service the car appropriately. This proved costly for the defending Cup Series champion as he was in a strong position to compete for the win, coming off a fuel-saving strategy. Logano ultimately finished in 15th place and is still looking for his first win of the season.

To tobychristie.com, the driver admitted to his mistake while pitting.

“Tough way to end the weekend for us,” Logano said. “The last run was shaping up to look a lot like how last fall’s strategy played out for us, but I just made a mistake on pit road that I wish I could have back. Proud of the effort but should’ve had more to show for it.”

Joey Logano had a remarkable 2024 season which culminated in his third championship title. Despite facing challenges throughout the regular season, which included a single win and a series of inconsistent finishes, the Team Penske star turned it around with 3 wins coming into the playoffs.

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Joey Logano made his ‘frustration’ clear before Las Vegas

Joey Logano was frustrated with his start to the season as he became the first defending champion not to secure a top-10 finish in the first five races of the following season. Despite strong showings in the Busch Light Clash and Duel 2, the regular season has been plagued with issues, ranging from a late-race crash at the Daytona 500 to a penalty at Phoenix, preventing him from capitalizing on fast cars. Ahead of the Las Vegas race, he had said (via NASCAR):

“Frustrating, I guess is probably the one word that comes to mind. I think I’ve left the race track every single weekend mad at something, which is just part of racing sometimes...So even though the finishes aren’t there, we’ve been able to run up front enough to score to stage points and to be able to be in contention, leading the laps."

"So there’s some positives there. It’s not like we’re just slow. It’s just that something has happened every race so far. So that part’s frustrating in a way because it also feels like you’re not taking full advantage of the opportunity that’s ahead of you because you’ve had fast race cars and you really haven’t been able to convert," he added.

Logano acknowledged the positive aspects, such as leading laps and scoring stage points, but emphasized that something has hindered their performance in each race.