“Way to go, Austin. Way to go, you (expletive)!”
No, that wasn’t Joey Logano congratulating his Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric on capturing his third career Cup Series victory at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday. Rather, it was Logano sounding off on the No. 2 driver over his scanner following the conclusion of Stage 2 when, coming to the green-white-checkered flag, Cindric didn’t give the No. 22 driver the push he appeared to be looking for to possibly win the stage.
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The defending champ Logano pulled out of his line and in front of his teammate after exiting Turn 4, perhaps expecting Cindric to file in line in the top lane and allow both ride back the start/finish line past Bubba Wallace, who was leading for most of the final lap.
Cindric instead lifted as he approached Logano’s bumper, moving closer to the wall and zapping their momentum and leaving Logano scrambling to find help to score stage points. It resulted in Wallace taking his second stage victory of the season and Cindric settling for third in the middle frame.
“I felt like I kind of just got pinched,” Cindric said after the race. “I was trying not to wreck the cars in front of me, including Joey. It was a messy end of the stage that I feel like between myself, the 21, Joey could have probably done better. We let one slip there.
“I can understand his frustration without kind of seeing the whole picture. These are the types of things that when you’re expecting someone to have your best interest, those are the challenges, right? We have a lot of meetings centered around that. I feel like it requires constant maintenance. It’s not always pretty. The conversations aren’t always easy.”
Logano talked Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, saying he and Cindric discussed the incident and have moved forward.
“There’s a multitude of things that kind of lead up to that moment,” Logano explained. “And when you go superspeedway racing, there are different rules in place for the teams. There are OEM rules, there are team rules, and you try to put these all in place to give your cars the best chance to win.
“The rules that were set in place weren’t followed, and that ticked me off quite a bit because I feel like I’ve always done the right thing and I try really hard to do that. And the rules have been put in place because of things we’ve done wrong in the past.”
MORE: Race results | Cup Series standings
Logano, the defending Cup champion, was frustrated because he saw Cindric’s move as a repeated hinderance rather than a one-off mistake.
“It wasn’t the first offense kind of situation, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Logano said. “And yeah, I lit up pretty quickly because I care. I am into it, man. I like racing, I am in 100%, and I expect things to go a certain way and when they don’t, yeah, I get pissed off. …
“Should I have hit the button and spouted off so much? Probably not. It probably blew up into a little bigger situation than what it needed to, but the conversation either way needed to happen. Like I said, I care about this stuff. This is my life. Racing is everything.”
Michael Nelson, president of Team Penske’s NASCAR operations, believes the stable’s drivers do an excellent job of teamwork on and off the track, believing the circumstance illustrates the desire to win for the organization.
“I think our team has done a really good job of working together as a team over the years, especially at these races,” Nelson said. “But when you see that, you realize how difficult it is behind the scenes. I guess it again proves these guys that we have, they want to win the races, right? They want to win for their team.
“At the end of the day, it’s just like a normal family. We have to go in and close the door when we’re not in front of everybody else and work through the issues that we have.”
Cindric powered through in the final stage to win Sunday’s Cup Series at Talladega. Logano was disqualified due to spoiler violations, which scrubbed away a fifth-place result and what would’ve been the three-time champ’s best finish so far in 2025.
Logano and Cindric will gear up again this Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET, PRN Radio, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio) for the 11th bout of the 2025 season.