When NASCAR Insider made the case for Joey Logano's third Cup championship being a deserved one

After Joey Logano won his third Cup title last month, Jordan Bianchi shared his takes on his impressive playoff campaign. The NASCAR journalist and the co-host of the Teardown podcast took the mic to draw a different perspective of Logano's journey to becoming a 3x champion.

After Joey Logano won at Phoenix, there were several claims of him not being a deserving champion. This was because his clutch performances came in the playoffs, where had three wins, as opposed to his single win in the regular season.

For Bianchi, this journey by Logano was 'remarkable.' The former mentioned how Ford was down at the start of the season compared to its competitors, Toyota and Chevrolet as their new Mustang stock car wasn't where they wanted it to be.

Speaking to Jeff Gluck in a DirtyMoMedia podcast episode that aired on November 11, 2024, Bianchi noted that after the initial hiccup, the team began to make small gains.

"You look at it and Logano's got four wins now and over that span which is, I think 18 races, Christopher Bell has not won a race, Denny Hamlin has not won a race, William Byron has not won a race, Chase Elliott has not won a race. And so, it to me, greatness can be defined in many many ways and the greatness for this team is the ability to find a way to win even when they may not have a fast car, even when their chips may be down and we've talked all year long about the Hendrick cars are really fast, the Gibbs cars are really fast. Gibbs cars haven it won since New Hampshire in June," Bianchi said [at 8:20]

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Jordan Bianchi rubbished claims of Joey Logano not being a deserving champion in the current playoff format

With Joey Logano winning three races in the playoffs, the most of any of his rivals, Jordan Bianchi pointed to the defining characteristic of the #22 team. For the Teardown co-host, it was their 'greediness.'

Bianchi further shared his thoughts on the format, which also became a big point of criticism after Phoenix as many believed it didn't reward deserving drivers. However, for Bianchi, it wasn't as complicated as that.

"Everybody's playing by the same rules and the fact is the rules put Joey Logano at a disadvantage to start the playoffs. He was the 15th seed. He started the playoffs below the cut line. Each round he had to fight his way above that cutline," Bianchi said of Joey Logano. [9:25]

Emphasizing that the format has remained that way for a decade, Bianchi added that every sport more or less has a playoff format in which the best team doesn't necessarily win.