Team Penske shifts focus on Mission Ryan Blaney following Joey Logano's win at Texas

Joey Logano ended his dry spell in the 2025 season, as he won Sunday's Cup Series race at Texas. The 3x Cup champion's win came a week after his Team Penske teammate, Austin Cindric, also registered his first win.

With both Penske drivers making their way into the playoffs, the only driver in Roger Penske's organization who has yet to earn a visit to the victory lane is Ryan Blaney. And as per Team Penske's Vice Chairman Walter Czarnecki, changing that would be the organization's focus going forward.

During a post-race media availability session, Czarnecki and Logano's crew chief, Paul Wolfe, were asked whether Logano's win came as 'a sigh of relief' after a difficult start to 2025. Penske's Vice Chairman claimed that he didn't know whether to call it 'a sigh of relief,' but he admitted that Joey Logano winning has reduced the pressure.

"The fact that here we are, I think this is 11th race of the year, and we got two cars in already for the playoffs. So it allows the team to I won’t say freewheel, but to be able to do some things that they might not have been otherwise to do. Now, the mission is to get Ryan Blaney into the playoffs. But, again, in fact, I said to Paul coming over, I used that expression, I said, 'Well, the pressure is off,' and he agreed," Czarnecki described.

Paul Wolfe then added that Blaney has been in multiple positions this season to win races. He shed light on how the #22 and #12 teams work 'very closely together.'

Logano's crew chief added that he found it ironic that at the end of the race in Texas, Logano found himself racing Blaney for the win.

Joey Logano's crew chief opens up on 'learning moment' from Talladega

During the post-race press conference, Paul Wolfe was asked about his comments at Talladega, where he stated that if Joey Logano and the #22 team don't make the playoffs by 30 points, he'd be upset. The journalist asked the crew chief whether his win a week after these comments healed that sentiment.

Wolfe said that winning 'obviously' healed a lot of things and fixed a lot of problems. He added that Talladega was 'unfortunate' for Joey Logano and the #22 team and a race they weren't proud of. Having said that, Wolfe clarified:

"It was nothing intentional. It was really a learning moment, like I’ve told all the guys in our meetings this week. We know what happened, or we have a pretty good idea what happened, and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen again and move forward."

The crew chief expressed his gratitude to their partners for their understanding of the affairs in NASCAR and how they're always 'working on the edge.' He claimed that Team Penske's #22 group has continued to look forward from Talladega, something which was evident a week later in Texas. He added that they've put all that behind them after learning from it.