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Team Penske has had a paradoxical 2025 Cup Series so far. Despite topping the laps-led charts this season, the Penske drivers have failed to convert those into wins. NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck highlighted this unusual trend, which has started a social media debate.
The Roger Penske-owned team fields three cars in the NASCAR Cup Series. Defending champion Joey Logano drives the #22, 2023 Cup winner Ryan Blaney drives the #12, and Austin Cindric pilots the #2 Ford Mustang. The three racers have led a combined 553 laps in the six races this season, but this has brought them a single top-five finish.
A Twitter post by NASCAR Insights showed this puzzling stat of the Team Penske racers holding the top three positions in the laps-led leaderboard. NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck reposted it on X and wrote:
Trending
"The laps led leader bizarrely has no top-10 finishes this year".
The Penske trio has dominated most of the races so far in the initial stages but failed to maintain position and stay ahead when it matters the most. Logano and Cindric have won one stage each so far, whereas Blaney has won two stages this season. But, the #12 Team Penske racer is the only one to finish inside the top five at Atlanta, after he finished fourth in overtime.
Joey Logano has led the most laps of all the drivers this season with 247 but is yet to finish inside the top ten. He currently remains outside the top ten of the Cup standings, at 11th with 160 points while Blaney is in 10th place with 162 points. Cindric stands the lowest at 21 with 121 points, outside the playoff spots.
"It just didn’t really work out for us": Team Penske's Ryan Blaney on another unfortunate race at Homestead-Miami
Ryan Blaney has perhaps had the most unfortunate season of all Team Penske drivers. He led two-thirds of the Straight Talk Wireless 400 last Sunday (March 23), but an engine failure on Lap 208 took him out of the race, adding to Team Penske's woes. Blaney revealed his frustration after the race talking to NASCAR:
“I didn’t have any warning. It just laid over when I got back to wide-open down the front and that was all she wrote. It just stinks. We had a really fast Dent Wizard Ford Mustang. We led a lot of laps...It was gonna be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but it just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll continue to keep fighting."
Blaney had one of the fastest cars at Homestead-Miami, where he led for 124 laps and even won Stage 1. Despite the unfortunate result, Blaney pointed out that the team was still looking ahead and taking positives in their ability to lead the pack.
This was Blaney's third DNF on the trot after a multi-car wreck took him out at Las Vegas and another motor blowout forced him to retire early in Phoenix. Despite starting the season well, with two back-to-back top tens in the first two races, Blaney finds himself struggling to find momentum.
