“It’s become a much longer shot”: Insider shares a blunt take on Roger Penske’s NASCAR team’s difficult playoff battle

Roger Penske's team won the last three NASCAR Cup Series titles consecutively and was reckoned by many to win a four-peat this year. However, this dream seems to be fading away as both Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney are well below the cutline, leading revered NASCAR insider Jeff Gluck to assert that it will be a long shot for Team Penske to secure a spot in the championship four.

In the last few years, the Roger Penske-led operation has been able to keep other giants in the form of Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing at bay. But, this year seems to be going away from themselves.

After Denny Hamlin won at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and the Team Penske playoff duo had dodgy races of their own, the team's plan to advance both of the cars into the championship four seems to be waning quickly. While the two remaining races provide the drivers a chance to make it into the final four, the chances seem slim, as Gluck said on The Teardown:

"The good news for Penske is, they have two of their best tracks coming up, Talladega and Martinsville. The bad news is, as Logano was talking after the race, now instead of sort of one car being the "points car" for Penske and one car being the must-win car, now they're sort of both in a must-win. It's not a total must-win, but he said it would have to be extremely special the next couple weeks... They're going to have to sweep these next two races, which is again not impossible, but it's become a much longer shot." (11:33 onwards)

Logano sits 24 points below the cutline while Blaney is a further seven points down.

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Roger Penske's playoff duo is not ready to give up on the championship

Roger Penske's NASCAR Cup Series drivers Joey Logano (L) and Ryan Blaney (R) - Source: Imagn

With Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney being several markers behind the cutline, their possibility of getting into the final four seems slim and relies heavily on winning a race in the next two race weekends. Despite this, they have not lost their motivation and look on to the next two weekends as challenges to overcome.

Reflecting on the task lying ahead, the reigning champion said in the post-race interview (via NBC Sports):

"Yeah, it’s possible. You have to be pretty special the next two weeks without winning the race."

Blaney also shared his take on the huge mountain of a deficit he has to overcome, as he said:

"We’ve had good success at the next two events, so hopefully we can come and bring the speed and try to overcome the hole we put ourselves in today."

If neither Logano nor Blaney can win the Cup Series title, then Roger Penske would have to miss out on the team's sixth championship in NASCAR.

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Edited by Geetansh Pasricha