A promising day for Ford Performance took a downturn for two blue oval teams at Talladega Superspeedway as post-race inspection revealed that Joey Logano and Ryan Preece were disqualified due to separate spoiler violations. Logano was ultimately credited with a 39th-place finish, with Ryan Preece slotting one position ahead in 38th.
RELATED: Talladega results | At-track photos: Talladega
JOEY LOGANO
Points to playoff cutline
Bristol: +47 (10th in standings)
Talladega (Pre-DQ): +73 (10th in standings)
Talladega (Post-DQ): +36 (13th in standings)
Joey Logano crossed the start/finish line in the fifth position at the completion of the 500-miler and propelled his team to an even more comfortable 10th place in the Cup Series standings with a 73-point buffer on the elimination line of the playoffs. With Logano’s disqualification and subsequent last-place finish only receiving one point, the three-time champion was relegated to 13th in the current standings.
While Logano is still comfortably in the playoff picture with plenty of regular-season racing to play out, the No. 22 driver will quickly look to turn the momentum back in his favor this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, where he has one victory in the premier series (2014) driving for Team Penske.
MORE: Logano blasts Cindric over radio after ‘Dega draft mix-up during Stage 2
RYAN PREECE
Points to playoff cutline
Bristol: +3 (15th in standings)
Talladega (Pre-DQ): +28 (14th in standings)
Talladega (Post-DQ): -14 (19th in standings)
Ryan Preece has been off to a career-best start to his 2025 Cup Series campaign. With three finishes inside the top 10 and almost knocking on the door of his first premier series victory with a third-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, this post-race inspection setback knocks the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford pilot out of the playoff conversation and drops him to 19th place in the playoff leaderboard.
As mentioned with his Ford Performance counterpart in Logano, there is still plenty of racing left and a chance that Preece punches his ticket into Victory Lane before we lock in our Round of 16 drivers, but the road to the Cup Series Playoffs just got a little bit tougher for the former modified driver from Berlin, Connecticut.
MORE: Preece, Logano disqualified after spoiler violations at Talladega