Championship Race: Joey Logano becomes three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion

Joey Logano is one of 10 drivers to win at least three Cup Series titles. (Photo: Jared C. Tilton | Getty Images)

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Team Penske’s Joey Logano used a dominant performance at Phoenix Raceway, leading 107 laps to win the 2024 season finale and the third championship of his NASCAR Cup Series career.

With his third Cup Series title (2018, 2022, 2024), Logano joins an exclusive list: He is now just one of 10 drivers to win three or more championships in NASCAR’s premier series.

“I love the playoffs, I love it, man,” Logano said. “What a race! What a Team Penske battle there at the end. Had a good restart and was able to get in front of the 12. And he had a lot of long run speed there, and it was all I had there to hold him off. Man, three of them, that’s really special to get that. What a team. To fight through today, we went through a little bit of adversity throughout the race.

“I can’t thank Ford enough and Shell and Pennzoil and Hunt Brothers Pizza, Paul Wolfe. What a crew chief do I have? I’ve got the best team. I don’t know if I’m the best driver, but I’ve got the best team, and together we’re very well-rounded and can show up when it matters the most. We’ve got a mentally tough team that can make things happen when it matters.”

Logano earned three of his four wins this year in the Cup Series Playoffs, which also happened to be his only top-five finishes in the postseason.

Logano’s teammate, 2023 Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, almost ran the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford down in the final laps of the race. Unfortunately for Blaney, he finished in the runner-up position in both the season finale and 2024 standings.

“Yeah, just worn out really and just couldn’t quite get there,” Blaney said. “And tried really hard to do so, just restart didn’t really work out and just got too far away from me and took me a while to pass a couple guys and just could never get by Joey. Yeah, ran out of time, but congrats to him, congrats to the 22 team and Pennzoil and Ford. They put together a great playoffs, and we’re happy. If we’re going to race somebody, I’m happy it was him for the championship, and happy to be one-two for Roger, three in a row for Roger, super amazing, and Ford.

“But on my side, I hate it for Menards, Advance Auto Parts, Body Armor, Dex Imaging, Wabash, the Wurth group, everybody who really puts a lot of effort into our program. Just super-fast, just didn’t quite have enough there at the end. At least a Penske car won it, but heck of a battle. I hope the fans enjoyed it, and hopefully we come back even stronger next year.”

This is Blaney’s second straight season of finishing second at Homestead, winning at Martinsville and then finishing second at Phoenix. However, this year, second place in the final race was not good enough to hoist the Bill France Cup.

Third-place finisher William Byron went on to finish third in the points after one of his best seasons at the top level. Byron, who has now made the Championship 4 in back-to-back years, said that coming so close once again makes him “hungrier” to come back for more.

“We just needed a little bit more,” Byron said. “I felt like we gave it all we had, and that’s something to be proud of. We just didn’t have enough to go fight with the Penske guys. I could at times kind of inch up on them, but I felt like on the short and long run they were better, and mid portion of the run I’d be a little bit better. But Rudy [Fugle] made a great call. I was really proud of that. That was cool to give us a shot and give us a shot at the front row and ultimately netted out better. But yeah, just not quite enough.

“But so proud of this team, AXALTA, Chevrolet, all of our partners. It’s been a great year to make the Championship 4 and win the [Daytona] 500 is awesome. I know what we need to work on, and we’ll go at it next year. I feel like this style of track has been tough on us, and we made a lot of strides this year, but still more to go.”

The driver who finished fourth in the standings was Regular Season Champion Tyler Reddick. The 23XI Racing driver finished sixth in the race and gave the team its best results ever in the points.

“I feel like we kept making our balance on The Beast Camry better and better all day — it was a bit telling in stage two here on that restart when we got to the 24 (Byron), 12 (Blaney) and the 22 (Logano) — I wouldn’t say they were doing anything much different, but they were able to get away from us after a while,” Reddick said. “It was good year for us. Won in the right moments, just hoping for a little bit more of that magic today and wasn’t meant to be.

“Yeah, it was a fun process getting ready for this. I felt like myself and the entire team’s mindset getting ready for this, we were all in a really good place. I felt like we were in a good place going into the race. It seemed like that throughout the day. Again, we made the right adjustments to the car and made it better throughout the day. I thought we were where we needed to be. We’ve just got to do some digging and try to bring a faster Camry when we come back in the spring and give it another shot.”

Results from the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway are listed below:

Here is a look at the final 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Standings:

Other Race Facts

Kyle Busch’s historic streak of winning a race in 19 consecutive NASCAR Cup Series seasons has come to an end. The driver with the most NASCAR national series wins of all time finished 20th in the standings which is the worst of his career.

Carson Hocevar became the 2024 Cup Series Rookie of the Year. The driver of the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet finished 21st in the standings.

Ty Gibbs was involved in an incident on Lap 2 that ended his day and season early. The 22-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver ended his sophomore season with the worst stretch of his racing career.

Martin Truex Jr. ended his career as a full-time Cup Series driver after Phoenix. The future Hall of Famer ends his full-time NASCAR career with 34 Cup victories, 147 top 5s, 291 top 10s, including the 2017 Cup Series title and back-to-back Xfinity Series titles in 2004 and 2005.

This was the last NASCAR race for Stewart-Haas Racing as the team ceased operations after Phoenix.

Nine other drivers besides Joey Logano who have won three or more Cup Series championships are:

• Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Richard Petty (7),
• Jeff Gordon (4),
• Tony Stewart, Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson, Lee Petty (3)

According to statistician Trey Ryan, here are the stats from the 2024 Cup Series season. One notable fact was Logano not leading a single category.

GRID RANKING