Team Penske star gets real about the odds of a back-to-back NASCAR win after recent Talladega victory

Team Penske driver Austin Cindric feels confident about his chances of winning back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series races. He will start third in Sunday’s Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway, just one week after winning at Talladega. Cindric qualified his No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Mustang with a fast lap of 28.195 seconds, hitting a top speed of 191.523 mph.

The Penske star will line up on the second row behind pole winner Carson Hocevar, who earned his first Cup Series pole, and current points leader William Byron. This is Cindric’s second career top-10 starting position at Texas, and he was only two hundredths of a second off the fastest time.

After the qualifying session, Cindric admitted he left a little on the table in Turn 1 but was still pleased with the result.

"I sent it into Turn 1 and didn't quite get to the bottom and didn't quite maximize my exit. I guess I can be happy with where we are at, but I definitely feel like you want to do it all," Cindric shared (via Speedway Digest). "We are in a great spot for tomorrow and should have a good pit stall, so I feel good about where we are at for tomorrow. We will try to go get another one."

Looking ahead to race day, the Team Penske driver believes they are well-prepared to win back-to-back races. He praised his crew for building strong cars on intermediate tracks like Texas.

"I think our guys have done a really great job at Team Penske of giving us really fast Mustangs on these intermediate tracks and applying what we have learned from last year and early this year to today. It will be a big test for tomorrow, but so far we have checked a lot of those boxes," he added.

So far in 10 race starts this season, Cindric has three top-10 and one top-5 results.

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Team Penske refused to appeal Joey Logano's disqualification at Talladega

Joey Logano lost his top-5 finish at Talladega after NASCAR disqualified his No. 22 Ford for a technical rule violation. Team Penske confirmed they will not appeal the ruling, even though they said the problem was not intentional.

After the race, NASCAR found that one of the bolts on Logano’s rear spoiler was loose. Spoilers play a key role in how the car handles at high speed, and all bolts must be tight and secure. Because of this issue, Logano dropped to 39th in the results. He also lost all nine of the stage points he had earned during the race and only got one point overall.

The disqualification also hurt Logano in the championship standings. The 34-year-old dropped from eighth to 11th place after Talladega. In a statement, posted on social media, Team Penske said they were disappointed but accepted the decision.

"The No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang was disqualified following post-race inspection at Talladega today. One of the 18 bolts on the surface of the spoiler that connect to the base was found to be loose, and NASCAR penalized the team as a result. This was not intentional and happened throughout the course of the race event. Team Penske accepts the disqualification," the team wrote on X.

Joey Logano will start 27th in Sunday’s Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. ET and will run for 267 laps around the 1.5-mile oval.