What happened?
Joey Logano won his second career NASCAR Cup Series Championship with a win in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway Sunday (Nov. 6). Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney finished second followed by championship rival Ross Chastain in third. Chase Briscoe and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five.
The victory marks Logano’s third career victory at the Arizona circuit and Roger Penske’s third Cup Series title as a team owner.
Fellow Championship 4 drivers Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott finished 10th and 28th, respectively.
How did it happen?
There was very little doubt.
From the green flag, Logano seemed to be the fastest car on the one-mile circuit. Heck, from the end of qualifying, the Connecticut native seemed to be the favorite. He started on the pole, won stage one and finished second in stage two.
Even for most of the final stage, however, Logano and his teammate Blaney dominated. The duo swapped the lead and led a combined 296 out of 312 laps of the event. For you non-mathematicians out there, that’s nearly 95% of the race the Penske cars dominated the event.
However, Briscoe inherited the lead under caution on lap 272 and led for a few laps after the green flag waved. Alas, the facade was broken after Logano sped by the Stewart-Haas Racing driver to take back the lead in the final 30 laps.
‘@JoeyLogano to the lead!
Less than 30 laps remain in the championship! #TeamJL pic.twitter.com/Sjb4oZb9bc
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) November 6, 2022
From then on, Blaney and points rival Chastain attempted to put up a fight but were unable to get around the No. 22 for the lead. Logano continued on to earn his second-career championship nearly unopposed.
Who stood out?
After Zane Smith and Ty Gibbs won their respective championships from the pole position, it was a good guess as to why Logano would be the favorite to take the title when he won the pole.
However, one would expect at least a little competition, but that simply didn’t come to be. While he didn’t lead every lap, the No. 22 Penske Ford went on to lead a race-high 187 out of 312 laps, which is nearly 60% of the season finale.
That made Logano public enemy no. 1 among the remaining playoff drivers. Alas, none of them were able to show enough speed to get around the Shell/Pennzoil Ford. Logano demonstrated the same amount of domination his championship-winning cohorts had displayed for the rest of the weekend in leading for most of the finale race.
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