Could a Horrible 2026 Season Signal the End for a Former NASCAR Champion?
Joey Logano is off to a very disappointing start to the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. After entering the season as one of the top contenders, ‘Sliced-bread’ has failed to even look like a consistent Top 10 threat. Logano currently sits outside of the Chase in 18th place, 38 points behind Shane Van Gisbergen, who holds the final Chase spot. His Team Penske teammates, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric, are ahead of him in fourth place and 15th place, respectively. Other than winning the pole at Phoenix, the Veteran NASCAR Cup Series star has only two Top Fives and three Top 10s. If these struggles continue, he will fail to make the Chase for the first time in nine years. Many fans and experts across NASCAR are wondering, does this signal the end of Logano’s career in the Cup Series?
The fearless late-race competitor’s dropoff could be due to a recent string of terrible luck. This past month has been a complete nightmare for the 22 Mustang. Since Bristol on April 12th, Logano has had only a single finish inside the Top 30 in a points-paying race. This string of horrible luck is lowlighted by wrecking out in ‘The Big One’ at Talladega, colliding with Cole Custer on pit lane at Texas, and a catastrophic tire failure that caused him to finish last at Watkins Glen. In the All-Star Race, he crashed after another tire failure and finished 25th. These concerns are not happening to his teammates to the same extent. The 12 Ford Mustang driven by Blaney has only one DNF in that same stretch, with that DNF also coming in ‘The Big One’ at Talladega.
While Logano has struggled with luck, he could also finally be exposed. Penske's elite superspeedway racer has been a huge benefactor of the elimination format that NASCAR used from 2014 to 2025. In all three of his championship seasons, he came into the playoffs outside of the Top 10 in points in 2 of those years, but wins in playoff races allowed him to cruise through the rounds and win championships. Could the switch back to the Chase in 2026 be actively revealing his struggles? Logano can no longer rely on a single win protecting him until the playoffs, and the struggles that he has with consistency and avoiding issues are now doing more damage.
These struggles could signal not just a bad season, but also the ending stages of Logano’s career. Racing’s modern-era NASCAR powerhouse is 35 years old, and the Cup Series field has been getting younger every year. Prospects, like Kayden Honeycutt, are competing for wins week after week. If he fails to adapt to the return of the Chase format, Roger Penske could consider switching to a young prospect like Honeycutt sooner rather than later. Logano must learn how to consistently race at the front again. If he cannot, he may be hanging up the helmet in the near future.
